Colorless
by xXDeath-N'-HellXx
Summary: Please don't read this until I say so.
1. Am I Going to Have a Funeral?

A/N: Okay. So, I know the genre says it's Humorous, but the first chapter is sorta angsty, and sad and stuff, so ya. Thought you should know.

Colorless

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Chapter One: "Am I Goin to Have a Funeral?"

Jasdevi. The boy that had become two. The two that was once one. They, or he, had once been human, a normal boy with a normal life. But then, the hateful god gave him the chance to become more than human.

To become a Noah.

Unable to run away from his despicable fate, Jasdevi became a Noah, and thus, became all powerful. But he didn't like that. He was a lonely boy, and desperately sought for the company he never received. The funny looking man who had first come to him that one knight, as Jasdevi mourned in pain, rubbing the black crosses on his head, as the image of all his loved ones slaughtered around him burned into his memory, telling him that he was to become a Noah, had told him he would be at home. But everyone thought him strange, perhaps even an outcast, so ignoring the dire warnings from the Earl, Jasdevi split him self into two beings, with two personalities, and with two minds. He liked himself like this, because this way, he always had someone to talk to even if that person was part of himself. But despite this separation, the two were still bonded very strongly, obviously, so they stayed near each other at all times…

In the form of two silly 10 year old children.

So, with his serious single form cast aside, Jasdero and Devitt replaced the space where their old form was supposed to inhabit, and, among the other Noah's, were known as their original name: Jasdevi.

And now, months later, the two brothers were roaming around the enormous building that was half engulfed in the never ending darkness that they had come to call home, looking for mischief once again.

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"Nee Devi~! Where're we going hii~!?" Jasdero whined, his blond hair still short and curly, his whimpering lips stitched together.

Devitt shushed his brother irritably, as they sneaked around a dark corner, avoiding any prying eyes from the other Noah.

"Deviiiiiii~!" Jasdero whined again, tugging hopefully at Devitt's jacket sleeve that reached well past his bony hands.

The raven haired boy sighed, and while rubbing his eyeliner covered eyes, said, "Okay, okay! We're looking for a room Road told me about. She said that's where the Earl keeps all the candy he gives to that bloke, Skin." This seemed to satisfy Jasdero, for he started to giggle at Devitt's words.

"Hee hee!!!" He screeched, "Bloke Skin, bloke Skin!!!" he repeated, clapping his hands lightly, like a small infant.

Devitt grinned at his brother's reaction, but slightly shushed him when he heard footsteps echoing down the dark hall, coming steadily towards them. The two…twins, you could say, hid behind a pillar that had conveniently appeared out of nowhere, and cautiously peered over the side of the polished stone.

The footsteps echoed on, and eventually, the twins could make out a short plump figure waddle out of the darkness.

"It's Mister Penguin Earl hii~!" Jasdero whispered, receiving a short nod from his brother.

"Yeah…" Jasdero muttered, narrowing his eyes, "What's he doing here?" His bony grey finger tapped the pillar anxiously, his brother soon following the gesture.

Then the two saw that annoying little critter that was a lame excuse for an umbrella. Well, that's what the twins thought. It had gone and tattle-tailed on them more than once, and the two hated it's guts…that is, if it had any.

The pumpkin headed pink umbrella had an expression of deep worry and uncertainty. "Hakushaku-sama~! What are we going to do with her~lero?" The umbrella, also known as Lero, squawked.

The Earl, with his long grinning face, that Jasdevi found somewhat freaky, looked over at his floating companion. "When you say, 'her', do you mean the sickly one~?" the Earl asked in his　voice that could have been any old grandfathers.

When the umbrella nodded eagerly, the Earl made a sound that may have been some sort of sigh. "Well…I suppose the poor thing is too weak to be introduced to the others as the moment…" Here the Earl made that sighing noise again, "We can only hope that she recovers fully~." With that, the Earl waddled off once again to the direction of the dining room.

The twins had been listening very intently on this short conversation between the Earl and Lelo, and thus, the two were confused. By far.

"…What the hell…" Devitt murmured, as the two stumbled out of their temporary hiding place.

"YA! What the hell, what the hell hii~!" Jasdero yelled, pointing in a random direction, as he crouched down next to his brother, and looking up at him like a puppy.

The raven haired twin frowned, and pulled his brother up by the scruff of his vest. "Get up, you dimwit." He muttered, "And stop yelling so loud. We're gonna get caught."

Jasdero nodded vigorously, and then pretended to zip his mouth shut.

Devitt rolled his eyes. "You don't have to go that far." He muttered, "Just…just, be quiet, okay?"

Jasdero nodded once again, but slowly, as if trying to process the command that was just given to him.

Devitt sighed. "Well, good that you understand." He said, and, the Earl completely forgotten, they started their secret-room-filled-with-candies hunt again.

----

BAM!

Another whack from the spiked, metal bats that the twins had conjured up with their power, and another door gone into splintery bits.

Devitt frowned as bunches of brooms and rags fell out of the room beyond the splintery remains of the door. "8 doors down, and not a single sweet in sight. How depressing." Devitt said aloud, Jasdero nodding in agreement, his face put out a bit.

"But…Devi…?"

"Hm?" Devitt turned to look at his brother, who seemed to be in such deep thought that he may as well nearly explode.

"Devi…" He repeated, "wont The Earl get mad at up is we break all the doors instead of opening them normally hii~?"

Devitt raised his brows, realizing that Jasdero had made a good point. But he returned to his 10 year old poise in an instant. "Who cares? We can just blame it on Skin. Say something like, he wanted to get more candy than usual, but forgot which door it was or something. And knowing that bloke, he probably doesn't even know how to use a doorknob."

This comment earned a chain of unending hysterical laughter from Jasdero, and Devitt could not help but grin wildly. "Come on, Jas. Let's go." Devitt said, pulling his brother up for the second time that day.

Jasdero giggled for no apparent reason, but nodded anyway. "Okedaaaay hii~!" He said in a sing-song voice, locking his arm with Devitt's, as they walked energetically down the hall to their next door.

"Once we find the candy, where do you think we should hide it?" Devitt asked, directing the question to his brother, but looking in a completely different direction.

"…"

"Jas?"

"…"

Devitt finally looked over to his brother, who was looking around the hallway as if it were the most beautiful and mysterious thing in the world. Devitt stared at his brother in a bored way, then, deciding that his patience could no longer be put up to his twins strange behavior, jabbed him in the ribs. Hard.

Jas barley flinched at Devitt's rough contact with his ribs, which Devitt thought was weird, due to the fact that Jasdero was usually quite emotional about things like that. "Hey, Jas. What's up?" He asked, now continuously poking his brother in the head.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY. JAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

"Shhh." Jas said, very quietly.

Devitt doubled back. Never, not once in the past several months that the two had been, well, two, had Jas ever commanded anything of Devitt. Even if that command was as simple as "Shhh". But Devitt didn't have too much of a problem with his brother telling him to be quiet, so he obeyed.

Devitt looked over at Jas, who was still looking up, his eye-liner covered eyelids closed. He seemed to be listening intently to something, something Devitt couldn't hear.

'No…wait…' Devitt _could _hear something, as faint and delicate as the sound was. In fact, it was so small, that Devitt wanted to stop breathing, in hopes of hearing it better. He couldn't quite make out what on earth it could be… but…

"So…sad…"

His brother's words snapped Devitt back to reality.

"Sad?" He muttered, as he turned to look at Jasdero. His brother's face was stained with black tears, due to their mascara and eyeliner. _Tears._ Noah's weren't supposed to cry. But despite Devitt disapproval to Jasdero's sudden change in emotion, he couldn't help but hear the tone of misery and helplessness in the tinkling that was lulling about in the nearly deserted hallway.

Jasdero's eyes suddenly snapped open, as if realization had hit him in the head like a brick. "Someone's crying hii~!" he squealed, his small gray fist clenching around his brothers jacket material, tears still streaming down his face. "We gotta find who's crying hii~!"

And with that, Jasdero ran off down the dark corridor, his golden locks bouncing with his movement.

"H-hey! Wait…Jas!" fear was starting to climb up Devitt's body like centipedes, or leeches or eels or any other gross slithery animal Devitt could think of. Being alone with only one half of himself was truly frightening to Devitt, he could feel tears forming in the back of his eyes. "J-Jas! Wait for meeeee!" and with that said, Devitt threw himself after his twin, desperate to be with each other again.

Devitt ran blindly down the hallway, his eyes wide, searching for his twin, no, his other half. "Jas! Jas! Where are you?!" He screamed desperately, his heart pounding inside his cagey chest.

"Where are yo—"

Thump.

Devitt fell back onto the cold, tiled floor, and looked up, only to find his twin brother, peering through a crack in a door, his eyes wide. Devitt felt like hugging his brother and punching him at the same exact time, but, seeing as Jas seemed to be so intent in what he was looking at, Devitt settled with a grunt and a jab at his brother's head.

"Ow! Devitt is being mean hii~!" Jasdero whispered, looking over at Devitt with badly made puppy-dog-eyes.

Devitt narrowed his eyes, and snorted. But even through the anger and fear that had engulfed him just a few seconds before, he smiled, and patted Jasdero on his blond head. "Sorry, Jas." He muttered, as Jas turned back to what he was looking at earlier.

The raven haired boy looked around at his dark and gloomy surroundings. They were in a corridor that Jasdevi had never even noticed before. The only door that occupied this hallway, was a large, black, bolted door, that seemed to be made out of some sort of metal. It was the thing on the other side of this monstrous door that Devitt's brother seemed so interested in. There was also a strange smell floating around…rotten eggs? He also noted that the miserable tinkling had stopped.

"So uhh…" Devitt mumbled, "Watcha lookin' at?"

"Look!"

Devitt positioned himself next to his brother, and peered through the sliver of space between the large, black, metal doors.

It was a room. Well, obviously it was going to be a room, but it was completely different from the other numerous rooms where there were just stacks of the same thing stored inside. This was an actual bedroom. But, Devitt had to admit, it was one hell of a gloomy bedroom.

If you squinted your eye's enough, you could easily enough see that there were four solid walls there, but because of all the shadows that crept across the cracked and chipped surfaces, spotting them were not as easy as it should have normally been. An old wardrobe was left abandoned against another wall, a multitude of cracks embracing its whole object. Devitt had a feeling that there was something very queer inside, and he had no intention to investigate. Just the look of that ancient wood, and morbid kind of vibes he got from the piece of run-down furniture made him envision coats with 4 arms nesting inside. There were also some cotton-like debris laying around randomly.

Right across from the door that the two Noah boys were peering through, a great, black, canopy bed was set against the wall, though even with such significance, the bed looked a bit shabby, like the rest of the room. The soft sheets were sprawled out in a sty, but there was no occupant in or around the thing.

Devitt didn't know what to do. It sure seemed worth a shot to explore, but he wasn't too enthusiastic about going inside. But just as he was going to discuss the situation with his brother, Jasdero jumped right on through the doors, into the room.

"H-hey! Jas, wait up!"

Devitt nearly tripped over himself, as he tried to run and stand up at once, watching as his brother slowly walked around the room. He quickly caught up with the blond boy, wanting to smack him in the head for leaving him behind for the second time. Just as he was about to raise his hand to hit Jasdero, an appalling creak, fit for a horror film, cut through the air.

Was the… door closing? Devitt watched as the great doors slowly started closing itself. In a heartbeat, that dreaded feeling of the thought of a ghost raced through him, but then he shook the silly idea away. Ghosts? As if. Devitt looked around the room, but as he had thought there were no windows. He could not recall either of the boys closing it…

Just then, a whimper sounded from next to him. He looked over at Jasdero, who was staring fearfully towards something in which the blond boy obviously found terrifying. Devitt followed his gaze.

Why was he staring at the door? He couldn't actually think there were ghosts?

His eye's widened in realization. The door slammed shut. The sound echoed through the room. There was silence.

The small figure cloaked in shadows, standing silently alongside the door, seemed quite content in the stillness. The two, large golden orbs that shone through the darkness, stared unblinkingly at them.

Devitt's yelp of shock shattered the stilled air in the room, as he sprung back, dragging Jesdero with him. His heart was pounding so hard, he wondered if anybody else could hear it's rushed rhythm. But then, silence fell again.

As if the silence was their cue, the silhouette stepped tentatively out of the shadows. The twin's hearts raced, dreading what was going to be revealed, but their presumption was proved pointless.

For the person who stepped out of the shadows, was a little, frail looking girl.

It was almost disappointing.

But her sunken stare, and dead expression mostly made up for it.

She was skinny, no doubt, much too skinny. The skin on her scrawny arms and legs defined her bone structure extremely, to a point where it just could not be healthy, and each joint of her bony hands looked too large for the rest of her stick like fingers. There were tremendous bags under the two tired orbs, and her eyes themselves were sunken deep into her mug. The girl's hair was a dark brown, that looked as if it had been cut in places with a blunt kitchen knife, and it covered most of her face. She wore a simple, sleeveless dress that the twins suspected had once been white, though now stained to a murky grey, and in her hand, which hung by her side, clutched a stuffed animal.

They couldn't tell what kind of animal, since the head had been wrenched off.

To put it simply, she was in such a bad state, that the two boys wouldn't have been surprised if her frail heart had stopped beating at any moment.

But what shocked them the most was after that.

Etched in her forehead, were those painful little crosses that the boys remembered much too well. The stigma.

"A…A Noah?" Devitt breathed, taking a step towards her, hand slightly outstretched.

The small movement seemed to awaken her, as she jumped backwards, clutching the doll to her chest protectively, and hissed as him, not unlike an animal. But then her fierce expression became one of pain, and she collapsed, covering her mouth as well as she could, as large, throaty coughs erupted from her throat. The boys could see blood seeping through her thin fingers.

The twins stared at the girl, who crouched in the same position, even after her coughing had finally subsided. They stayed in the exact same spot for several minutes. It may as well been years.

When the girl finally got to her feet once more – wobbling slightly and leaning against the wall – she ignored the blood smeared across her hand completely, and stared almost helplessly at the boys, almost as if in defeat.

As if she knew she would never stand the chance.

It was a pitiful sight. She looked so dead, so hollow. As if all the joy had been sucked out of her for far too long.

"Am I…" Her voice, sliced through the air like a blade, causing the two Noahs to snap out of their faze. "Am I…" She repeated in her raspy frail voice, "Going to have… a funeral…?"

It was barely above a pitiful whisper, and the pure misery of the short sentence had Devitt clutching his fist so tightly that his knuckles were white. Maybe it was because the other was a Noah as well, but he felt sad, more so than he should have been.

He looked over at his brother, only to find that the blond too, seemed on the verge of tears.

Shaking his head to rid the feeling of misery from his mind, Devitt took a few tentative steps forward, bravely looking up to meet the girls unwavering stare. "Why the hell are you talking about your funeral?" He said, earning a slight change of expression from the girl that may have been confusion, "You're still alive, aren't you? You should be worried about getting better, not about some god damned funeral!" Devitt swallowed the lump that had reformed in his throat, and looked down at his shoes, panting. Why did he care so much? He looked back up again, once he was sure he had pulled himself together.

Jasdero hesitantly stepped up to the girl, and once he was right in front of her, took one of her frail hands, and grasped it lightly with both of his. Devitt could see the blood rubbing onto his brother's hands, but if the blond noticed, he hid it well.

"Dero and Devi won't let you die." He said to the girl, whose tired gaze had drifted over to the blond boy.

Devitt glanced questioningly over at his brother, who smiled reassuringly in return. Jasdero turned back toward the girl, the reassuring smile still adorning his gray lips. He was somewhat shocked to find the girl's cheeks shining with freshly shed tears.

The blond boy grinned sheepishly. "It's okay, Jasdevi are here for you hii~!" He said, squeezing her hand lightly for a split second.

The girl tried to squeeze back, although it was more like a twitch in Jasdero's hand, and the tips of her lips flickered.

It may have been a smile.

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A/N: … God, everyone's so OOC. And I'm pretty sure it's not just me. Later on in the story, they'll become more IC, and the girl will seem less of a Mary-Sue, but this chapter and the next, the OOC-ism might continue. Though I swear to the gods, I'm not doing it on purpose. Hopefully, the next chapter will be funnier. Now all you gotta do is click the button below this message that says, "Review" and TADAAA!!!

*cough*

D-n-h


	2. Family

Colorless

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Chapter Two: Family

Five Noah's (if you count he Earl as a Noah) were sitting at the dining table, looking extremely irritated and hungry. The Millennium Earl sat at the head of the exquisitely decorated table, his usual, abnormally large grin still plastered on his face, despite the fact that they had been waiting for over half an hour.

He glanced over at the two chairs that still remained empty next to Lulubell and Skin's seats, and sighed. Those two were nothing but trouble… but because Jasdero and Devitt were still Noah's, they would have to wait for them to arrive at the dining room, accompanied by any one of their loud, obnoxious entrances.

But of course, the Earl had never readied himself for what they were planning today.

With a loud bang of expensive doors against walls, and two childish war cries, Jasdero and Devitt jumped into the room, holding the spiked, metal bats from earlier above their little heads.

The Noah's blinked, staring at the twins with either surprise or amusement or, with Road's case, both.

Devitt lowered his bat, jumped in front of Jasdero, and pointed at the Earl, a feisty expression painted on his ashen face. "What the hell are you trying to do Sennenkou?!" He exclaimed, earning many quizzical looks from the other Noah.

Earl raised one of his nonexistent eyebrows, and still grinning (obviously), asked, "What are you talking about my dear Devitt?" And then, almost as if an afterthought, "And why did you take so long?"

The twins acted like the last question wasn't even uttered, and Jasdero now jumped forward, as if the two had rehearsed this several times. "That's what we're talking 'bout hii~!" The blond boy exclaimed, pointing his black nailed finger towards the door they had just burst through.

…And there, partially hiding behind the large red doors was a little girl.

The Noah's blinked, their golden gazes resting on the cowering child, surprise evident on their features.

"Sennenkou…" Road breathed, glancing expectantly at the Earl, who, although still grinning widely, seemed surprised as well. That is, as far as anybody could tell.

But the Earl was first to regain his, and, giving a throaty chuckle, replied to Devitt's long forgotten question. "Ah. So I see you've found my little Chike. (Pronounced CHEE-KE)" His tone of voice had an evident hint of amusement in it, along with irritation.

"Chike—, wait, that's not the point!" Devitt exclaimed, exasperated. "What I want to know, is why she was stuck in a room that smelled like something had died in it, starved half to death, and with a stupid idea in her that she was going to have her funeral soon!" then, after wondering for a moment if to say it or not, added, "And she's a Noah too!"

Jasdero nodded enthusiastically in agreement, bouncing slightly on the spot. "Ya, ya hii~!" he chirped, giving off a vibe that he didn't have a clue to as what was going on.

The four other Noah seemed surprised at the sudden information given to them by Devitt, and glanced questionably at the Earl, obviously confused.

Lulubell glanced coolly over at the Earl, her expression never betraying the confusion, shock, and even a bit of accusation that she felt. "Aruji," She purred, "this cannot be true. You would never…"

"Yes," The Earl chuckled, interrupting Lulubell's sentence, "it is indeed true."

A dreaded silence.

"Wha?" Devitt and Jasdero both gawked stupidly, breaking the silence. They had never actually thought that the Earl would admit his crime; they had imagined that he would deny it, and plead for mercy like in those detective stories.

"It's true," the Earl repeated, earning disbelieving glances from the Noah, "though you are making a misinterpretation." He continued.

Devitt narrowed his eyes, his confidence slowly ebbing away. Slowly. He wasn't ready to back down just yet. "Yeah? How could anyone make a fucking _misinterpretation _about a situation like this?" He shot back, waving his hand in the air exasperated.

The Earl chuckled his throaty chuckle yet again. "Well you see, Chike was a very sick child when God had decided that she was worthy of becoming one of Noah's people." Here he paused, challenging Devitt to say something. When the raven-haired boy remained silent, he continued. "But because of her illness, the transformation was quite…" he glanced at the small girl, who had taken to hide behind Jasdero's form, "…damaging to her health. It was evident that she was in critical state.

"So I decided that I should wait for her to recover from the transformation itself before introducing her so that her immune system – which would have toughened tenfold of a filthy humans, mind you – could help Chike recover. That way, none of you would make her do any unnecessary things that worsened her situation. And so I put her in the most isolated and least known room there was, so that she could rest, and recover in peace and _quiet._" Here he glanced at both Jasdero and Devitt, and with a hint of accusation in his voice, and added, "Obviously, I didn't do good enough~"

Devitt was lost for words. So this _was_ just a big misunderstanding? Now he felt just pathetic. Stupid, even. So he backed away, and stayed silent, noiselessly cursing himself for making interpretations too quickly.

After a long, and awkward silence, Road asked the question that was running through everyone' minds.

"So… what now?"

The Earl made a sound that was very similar to a sigh. "Well…" he said, making a slight movement with his shoulders that may have been a shrug, "Since you all know, I suppose there's no point in isolating her any longer~…"

Devitt and Jasdero jumped up gleefully accompanied by their happy hollering, shortly celebrating their victory for the argument against the Earl. "Damn right!" Devitt yelled, giving a high-five to his brother, who chuckled aimlessly.

The Earl suddenly turned to the twins, his small, round spectacles flashing ominously. "And you two. I don't know where you learned such colorful language. It certainly wasn't from me." He huffed, and everyone could feel the temperature in the room fall several degrees.

The twins, seemingly unaffected by the sudden chill in the room, instinctively pointed at Tyki. The poor man took a double take.

"What?!" he exclaimed, the cigarette he had been smoking falling out of his mouth, and landing softly on his bare plate.

Now the Earl turned to him, his large grin giving off an evil vibe. "Jasdevi, why don't you go find dear Chike something suitable to wear while I teach Tyki-pet a couple of lessons?" He chuckled, advancing upon Tyki, who was trying to press himself into the cushion on the back of the chair.

Giggling, Road raised her hand childishly. "I'll come and help Jasdevi too!" she said, and, jumping out of her seat, added, "Good luck!" She waved at the Noah of Pleasure, as she followed the twins and Chike out of the Dining Room.

And as Tyki gave out an ear-splitting scream, the large red doors that led to the dining area, creaked shut.

----

"WHAT?!"

"What?" Road asked innocently, as she pushed Chike lightly through the doorway that let into Road's room.

"No way are we gonna leave Chike alone into there with just you." Devitt said, crossing his arms across his skinny chest. "Sennenkou asked _us _to find her something decent to wear, not you. You're probably gonna make her look really girly or something!"

Road grinned her mischievous grin, and giggled. "Yeah, but look at her!" she said, her smile still plastered on her face, "She needs a bath! And you're boys. Boys aren't allowed to see a girl taking a bath!"

Now that was a point that the two couldn't argue to.

"But—"

"No buts. Or are you perverts? I didn't think boy's got this horny at ten!"

"But _we _found her!"

"So? She's still a girl, and she needs a bath. Which means I'll have to help her, not you." Road giggled again. "See you later, perverts!" And with that last comment still lingering in the air, Road snapped her door shut, herself and Chike safely on the other side, away from the outburst that followed shortly after.

After Road caught her breath again, because of her sudden hysterical laughing, she looked down at the small child, who's care was now in her hands.

"So," She said, the mischievous smile returning to her face, "how about we get you washed up?" And without waiting for a reply, she grasped the child's skinny hand in her own, and pulled Chike lightly toward the other side of the room, to a door that must've led to a bathroom.

Chike vaguely remembered passing many large piles of stuffed animals and floating pointed candles that drifted slowly around the large, colorful, and yet morbid looking room. The walls were hot pink and purple stripes. She liked them somehow, even though she couldn't remember ever particularly liking the color pink. Perhaps she had forgotten how it looked like, as she had been stuck in that dull, dark room for…how long had it been…?

As Chike pondered lightly about random things, she didn't notice entering a large, white, and spotless bathroom, and that Road had let go of her hand to go and fill up the exceptionally large tub. Chike only came back to the present when she felt Road stripping Chike of her filthy dress, and letting her slip into the hot water, that had a huge mound of bubbles on the top.

Chike sighed at the warmth of the water, and she closed her sunken eyes, enjoying herself for the first time in who knows how long. She felt herself drifting to sleep in moments, and gave her body and mind every right to do so, but was woken up again, when she felt a warm something rubbing her back gently in soft circles.

She looked behind her shoulder to find Road cleaning her with a dark purple washcloth, the sleeves of her black dressrolled up at her elbows.

Chike smiled lightly, a wave of familiarity washing over her. This felt like when her mother bathed her. She remembered her mother, although she couldn't remember how she looked like.

But just the thought of her mother comforted her.

"Y-you don't have to…" Chike breathed, slumping her shoulders forward in a shy manner.

Road giggled. "But I like dressing up people, and you can only look really nice if you're all washed up." The purple haired girl said, squeezing out the washcloth in the hot water.

Chike smiled lightly as she let Road scrub the entire scale of her body. After her hair was thoroughly washed, Chike climbed out of the gigantic tub, and was wrapped in a very fluffy white towel. She sighed at the contact of the soft material against her skin, and waited contently as Road went back to her room to fetch some decent clothes.

The raven-haired girl looked around the exquisite bathroom, and noticed that there were a few of the sharp floating candles in the room as well. She walked over to the closest and lowest one, and hesitantly reached her hand out to it. It was cold to the touch, despite the fact that there was a small flame burning at the top of it. She ran the tip of her finger down the length of the candle, and accidentally pricked her finger at the tip.

"Ah." She muttered, as she slowly withdrew her hand, and looked down at her grey finger, where a tiny sphere of scarlet blood was forming out of her miniscule wound. She licked the blood off, and noted the metallic taste that spread through her mouth.

She snapped back to reality when she heard the familiar giggle coming from the doorway. Looking over she found Road holding a mid-purple colored dress, with black frills and lining.

Road giggled again, as she looked from the dress to Chike and back again. "I think you'll look good in this." She commented, as she walked over to the small girl, who was now slightly sucking on her finger.

Chike was given the violet dress, and Road left the room, saying, "If you need any help, I'll be in my room." And with that, the door snapped shut.

Chike stared at the door for a moment or two, and then dropped the dress on the floor. A tiny white bundle fell out of the layers of violet fabric, and as Chike crouched down to see what it was, she discovered it was a pair of clean, and seemingly brand new underwear. Shrugging, she slid out of the towel, and slipped on the under garment. It fit perfectly, and she proceeded to unzip the back of the dress, and step into it. That seemed to fit perfectly as well.

But there was one little problem.

---

Road sat at the edge of her big purple and pink bed, her legs swinging over the edge as she played with a stuffed kitten. She looked up when she heard a light creak, and saw that Chike was standing before her in the dress. The child looked quite charming in it. The skirt was fluffy, with many layers, and ended just below her knees, and Road thought that black tights would be just the finishing touch.

Road grinned. "You look like a little dolly!" she squealed, as she jumped off her bed, and bounced over to the small child.

The girl turned around suddenly, revealing an unzipped back. "I can't reach it…" She muttered, as she fumbled with her fingers nervously.

"It's alright!" Road chirped happily, as she quickly zipped up the back of the dress, a happy grin plastered on her face. Then an idea stuck her. "How about we go and show Jasdevi your outfit?" She asked, glancing down at the smaller girl, who's expression stayed emotionless.

Chike nodded curtly, and followed the skipping Road to the entrance to her room. As the two girls arrived at the large double doors, Road pulled open one of them, receiving two startled yells. The twins lay on the ground, their legs sticking up I the air, looking quite…well, ridicules. They seemed to have been leaning against the door before Road had opened it.

Road pulled the two up by the scruff of their shirts as she rolled her golden orbs, but her irritated mood instantly evaporated as she remembered why they were there.

"Oi, Jasdevi!" She snapped, getting their attention instantly. She grinned, and then continued. "How do ya like Chike's new outfit?"

The two boys stared at Chike intently, their expression totally neutral. Chike felt somewhat nervous under the hard gaze of the two boys. Swallowing, she looked up to meet their stare with an equally unwavering glare.

After a few moments, the boys scrunched up the faces in disgust. "EWW!!!" they both yelled, both taking a step back at once.

"I knew you were gonna make her look really girly!" Devitt exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Road, who had an irritated frown on her face.

Road stuck her tongue out at the opposing boy, and crossed her arms, obviously annoyed. "I never said I wasn't gonna make her look girly." She said, narrowing her large golden eyes at the boys. "But she looks nice in it, and you two are being real jerks." She added, emphasizing the last word by jabbing her finger at Devitt's chest.

Devitt and Jasdero stuck their tongues out at her as well, making a "BLEEE!!!" noise, before handing the purple haired girl a bundle.

She stared down at it, a puzzled expression on her face. "What's this?" She asked, hesitantly taking the bundle in her hands.

"Cloths." Devitt said flatly. "For her." He nodded at Chike who was still glaring at the two for insulting her appearance.

"Clothes?" Road repeated, although it came out as a question, "Why would she need clothes? She already has some." She commented, looking down at the bundle that was given to her.

Devitt rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but _we_ don't like them." He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Road raised her brow. "So? Who cares if you don't like them?"

"We do."

"No. Really?"

"Yes. And besides, we found her."

"What do you morons think she is? A toy?"

"…We found her."

"You already said that."

"So? It's true. We found her."

"…It's sad how pathetic you guys are."

"Shut up. Just make her wear it, alright?"

Road narrowed her eyes suspiciously, her golden orbs boring into the twins'. "Fine." She said, finally, after a few moments.

The twins nodded. "Good." Devitt said, getting another nod from Jasdero.

Huffing, Road turned on her heel, and grabbed Chike's hand. With that, she stomped into her room, and slammed the door shut behind her, which equaled to a loud "bang" echoing down the corridor.

Devitt raised a brow. "What the heck? Talk about moody." He muttered, earning a snicker from his brother.

----

Road was still fuming as she left Chike to change into her supposedly, "new", clothes. The purple haired girl was muttering curses under her breath, as she crossed her arms, and sat on her bed, the stuffed kitten from earlier laying some five feet away, it's head ripped away from it's body in the midst of Road's anger.

Chike crept up to Road silently, although not intentionally, and then stood, unnoticed. "R-Road?" she squeaked, waiting for the approval on her outfit.

Road started, and whipped her head around. Her eye's widened when she saw what Chike was wearing.

The child was clad in a white sleeveless dress that reached just above her knees, with black dots at the hem. Over the white dress was a dark brown, long-sleeved jacket that only reached up to the bottom of the girl's ribcage, and hung open, allowing the startling white dress to show it's glow. There was a mane of fur around the collar of the jacket, which made Chike look somewhat older than she really was, and fishnet stockings adorned her thin legs, accompanied by black shoes.

All and all, it was a very Jasdevi kind of style, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Road had expected. In fact, it looked somewhat cute on the girl.

Road giggled. Where did those two get these clothes? _Oh right…they probably made them. They're power is materialization after all…_ Road's thought was interrupted by a small hand touching her own. She looked down to find Chike.

"Do I look funny?" she asked, staring up at Road with big golden eyes.

Road grinned her usual mischievous grin. "No, no," She replied, still smiling, "I was just thinking."

----

Jasdero and Devitt waited impatiently outside of Road's door. Devitt slammed his fist against the wooden surface several times. "Road! Are you done yet?! It's been like, two hours since dinner!" The raven-haired boy yelled, pounding the door again.

There was no reply.

The two boys growled. Two fists started pounding and punching the door at the same time. "ROOOAAA—"

The two boys fell forward yet again as the door opened. "Gah!" Devitt yelled, as he pushed himself up irritably. The two looked up to see Road towering over them, (since they were still on the floor), with Chike hiding behind her.

"Get up, stupid." Road muttered, nudging the two with her foot. Grumbling curses under their breaths, the two stood up, and looked at Road with half hearted loathing. "Good." Road continued, and then lightly pushed Chike to the front. "Here, she's wearing your stupid clothes, happy now?"

The two boys looked her up and down. She did look much better than before, in their opinion, but something else had changed too. Chike's once messy and unkempt hair, was now cut neatly in a strait line, ending in points below her chin. And also, the tips of her bangs, that were parted at the right side of her forehead, were dyed purple.

The wins raised at brow at Road, who was grinning as if she was secretly celebrating for her new masterpiece.

"Uhh…Road?"

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you dye the tips of her hair purple?"

"Because there're too many people in this place with dark hair."

"…"

"You, Devitt, have black hair, so does Skin, Lulubell, Tyki, and now Chike! I'm getting bored of normal dark hair. So I dyed some of it my hair color."

"…Uh-huh…."

"What?" The purple haired girl asked, "It's true."

The twins rolled their eyes. "Yeah, yeah." Devitt muttered, "Whatever."

Chike frowned, and stuck her tongue out at the boys.

Road giggled uncontrollably. "Good job Chike!" She chuckled, as Jasdevi turned red in the face. They didn't seem to like it when a little girl did anything to offend them. Chike smiled lightly, as she looked up at Road with glee. Had she done something good? Actually, she couldn't tell. Road was grinning happily, while the boys seemed quite angry. Chike shrugged, as long as somewhat found it a good thing…

"Jasdevi!" Road snapped, dragging Chike out of her thoughts. "How long has it been since I started dressing Chike?"

The boys sighed, glad to finally get back on topic. "We already told you, it's been about two hours!" They cried in exasperation, "I bet they already ate dinner without us!"

Road shook her head confidently, her spiky purple hair swaying. "Sennenkou wouldn't do that to me." She said, as she started down the corridor, Chike and Jasdevi hot on her heels.

Road led the three other Noah down seemingly identical corridors, turning at very specific corners as if she new exactly where she was going. But then again, she probably did, Chike realized, looking around the corridor, and taking in the scenery for the first time that day. It was dark and gloomy, but she felt the description, "home" etched into every surface she set her golden gaze upon.

After a few minutes, the large red doors from two hours earlier came into sight, and Road pushed them open without any hesitation to knock. The rest of the Noah family was there, seated in the exact same places, as if they hadn't moved the entire two hours. That is, of course, everyone besides Tyki. He seemed quite shaken; although he uselessly tried the best he could to hide that fact.

Road grinned her mischievous grin yet again, and giggled at the seemingly older Noah. "Rough time?" She asked quietly, earning a glare from Tyki.

Road shrugged and walked over to her seat next to the curly haired man, and sat down. She indicated to Chike to come and sit down on the extra seat that had obviously been set there entirely for the dark-haired girl, and Chike was glad that it was next to Roads instead of some other unknown Noah, although she wouldn't have minded much if it was next to the boys.

That's when it hit her, the smell. She could smell the delicious foods that were being served, though what they were she couldn't tell, for all her memories of food had now been dulled because of the gooey, white crap that had been fed to her by the Earl.

So when she climbed up onto her chair, and saw the gourmet sitting in front of her, she started shoveling it in her mouth, not even caring if she may throw up later like she usually did. She vaguely heard someone speaking, perhaps the Earl, but this was completely ignored, as she enjoyed decent food in a long time.

Finally, she noticed that there was silence around her. She stopped devouring, and looked up to find the others staring at her with something like amusement. She immediately averted her eyes, her grey cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

Then she heard laughter, and looked up. The twins where shaking in their seats, slapping their knees, the table, and even each other in their hysterics. Soon after Road was giggling uncontrollably too, and then the curly haired man was snickering. Before she knew it, even the Earl was making strange sounds that were another form of laughter. The only ones not laughing where the large, spiky haired man, and the elegant black haired woman, but Chike didn't think they were capable of laughing, let alone smile.

Chike cracked a small smile herself, her eyes welling over with tears as she looked around at her new "family". This was her home.

A/N: OH MY GOD!!! That last bit was so cheesy! …(sigh) oh well. Oh, and for people who may have been a little confused when I said that Road had a black dress on, well she's always wearing a black dress at dinner. Thought you should know.

And I swear to god, the next chapter will be funnier. Hopefully.

Review!

D-n-h


	3. Mimi Has Arrived!

A/N: This chapter takes place when Lulubell is attacking Allen and Lenalee and Lavi and stuff… just thought you should know…

Colorless

----

Chapter Three:

A sixteen-year-old Chike lay spiraled out on the plushy, dark purple armchair in her large, gothic room. She yawned widely, tears forming at the edges of her eyes, as she stretched out her slender arms. She rubbed her eyes drowsily, only to smudge the thick eyeliner onto her fist.

"Aw man…this stuff smudges so easily…" She muttered, sighing. She regretfully pulled herself off of the comfy exterior of the armchair, and walked over to a door that had once been white. It was now covered with graffiti and posters that read, "Keep OUT", due to the fact that most of Chike's free time was filled up with boredom.

Turning the doorknob, that had been painted to look like an eyeball, she entered the slightly messy, pale lilac and black tiled bathroom. Shoving a pile of towels off of the counter where the sink was, she turned the knob with her non-eyeliner-stained hand, and quickly attended to washing the sticky black substance off of her hand and face.

When that was done, she grabbed the eyeliner from next to the sink, and dabbed some around her eye, where she previously had rubbed off. It was the only make-up she possessed, and she intended to keep it that way, no matter how much Road prodded her to make herself look more pretty with various types of other make-up. She was quite content with her eyeliner. And it was a really cool liquid type eyeliner too, that you could put on if you squeezed it. It had originally been Jasdevi's, but one day, it mysteriously _disappeared, _ending up in Chike's hands. It seemed that hours of hanging out with Jasdevi, had rubbed their "style" on her.

Chike snorted. Road was a funny one. Chike and the girl had been friends as long as Chike could remember, but for some reason, Road hadn't seemed to age at all, while Chike and the twins did. The raven-haired girl had felt it somewhat strange at first to suddenly be older (looking anyway) than Road, when she had gotten so used to being like Road's little sister, but after a while, she had gotten comfortable with being older than the purple haired Noah, and the two remained to be friends. There was also the fact that Road would be completely friendly and innocent like a normal child at one moment, then be serious and blood thirsty the next.

Chike chuckled, as she set down the eyeliner. Her golden eye's set it's gaze upon it, and Chike mind started to wander.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror, a look of satisfaction crossing her face when she saw that she could look at herself without any trouble. When she was younger, she was too short, and could hardly see the top of her head. Of course, she had been able to see herself properly for over five years, but it still made her feel gleeful at the memory. Actually, Chike had grown a considerable amount during the seven years she had been officially living as a Noah. Maybe even two feet. But that was to be expected, considering she was nearly starved to death in the beginning, and had started to sprout when she had gotten a chain of good meals. And plus, it had been seven years. That's a pretty long time.

She shook her head, making her mind wonder back to her original thought. She looked at her reflection silently again. Her gaze then wandered absent-mindedly at a picture frame that was mostly buried in a mountain of damp washcloths and towels, which were infested with the sticky black eyeliner. It was a picture of her from around six or five years ago. She scrunched up her face in distaste when the bright yellow skirt she was wearing met her eyes. If she remembered correctly, Road was the one who had put it on her. She stayed away from skirts now. In her mind, they only got in the way, not to mention make it easier for drunken men to molest you.

She visibly shuddered at the thought, even though she knew that some insignificant human would never be able to lay a hand on her.

Shaking her head to rid the though, Chike glanced down at the picture again, using all the power she had to ignore the skirt, and noted how short she had been compared to the other two boys in the frame. Jasdero and Devitt. She was looking up at the camera, grinning like a complete idiot while the boys both gave her bunny-ears, identical grins on their ashen faces.

Chike was tall, nearly as tall as Jasdevi anyway, which equaled to asking Jasdevi to make her new clothes. She didn't quite like the ones Road had offered; they were all dresses for one, and long, puffy, frilly dresses at that. Jasdevi had agreed to make her new clothes as Chike wanted, and that was what consisted of her wardrobe nowadays.

At the moment, Chike was wearing a simple grey tank top, a shade lighter than her skin, under a vest made of some black material with a fur hemming around the collar. You could see a large, up-side-down, black pentacle printed onto her tank top, in the sign of the Akuma. She wore faded black trousers, tucked into large, knee-high combat boots. Her dark brown hair was held up into a messy pony-tail, strands of hair sticking in various direction at the top.

Chike's personality had changed enormously as well. Her once, shy, polite and sweet nature had become… well, more like Jasdevi's, to say the least. She became rude, reckless, and outgoing. Perhaps a bit _too _out going, considering that she usually acted before thinking, and would have nearly gotten herself killed several times.

_That is_, Chike thought in glee, _if I were a normal human. _

Shrugging, Chike walked out of the bathroom, her fingers intertwined with each other behind her head, and walked out of her cluttered room, slamming the graffiti covered door shut with her foot. She continued to walk down the dark corridors that had become so familiar to a point where she knew every crack on its gloomy walls.

She came to a stop in front of another set of double doors that was quite similar to hers. There was graffiti on them, but also poorly drawn pictures of a longhaired blond with a stitched mouth, and a messy raven-haired boy on the wooden surfaces.

Now, any normal person would knock, right? (Unless of course you're trying to invade one of your sibling's rooms, but that doesn't matter…) Obviously, Chike wasn't one of those normal people.

She raised her foot, her hands in her pockets, a bored expression set upon her face, and kicked the door several times. Hard. It rattled, and small cracks here and there were heard, as if the door was going to give out at any moment.

But Chike kept thumping her foot against the wood, refusing to stop until someone opened the door.

And finally, someone did.

That person also got kicked in the stomach. By accident of course.

"Whoops. Sorry Dev." Chike said, not a single drop of sympathy in her blunt words as she casually strolled past the withering Devitt, and into his room without even pausing to help him up.

"Oh yeah, _thanks_." The raven-haired teen drawled irritably. Chike could nearly hear the sarcasm drip onto the floor from his words.

Rolling her eyes, she went over and helped her best friend up from his lying position. "There, happy now?" She asked, half irritated, although a smirk was tugging at her lips.

"Chike hii~!" a voice exclaimed, and turning round, Chike found a boy with long blond hair and a stitched mouth bouncing over to her. Seriously. Bouncing. He was clutching onto a giant rubber ball that was smashing around the room, as if Jasdero was trying to break everything he could.

"Jas!" Devitt yelled, exasperated, and jumped forward to help his brother with the rubber ball.

Chike slapped herself on the forehead, flinching slightly when her hand contacted with her head. "Uhhgg…" She groaned, looking at the two guys with a look that clearly said, "You guys are idiots...".

But unable to escape the fact that her two best friends where just messed up that way, Chike decided to help out with their rubbery problem.

She raised her arm lazily, her hand shaped as if it were a half hearted point, and directed her fingers at the rubber ball that was still bouncing around the room, accompanied by two boys and their screeches. Whether the screeches were laughter or screams, Chike could not tell.

Her arm tensed for a split second, as a purple black streak of electricity looking substance zapped from her hand to the ball. The electricity slowed down, just as it was at the ball, and sunk right into it, as if it was passing through some sort of thick substance.

A moment passed, and Chike smiled, satisfied, as the ball came to an abrupt and quivering stop.

The twins looked down at the indicated ball, a puzzled look on their faces. "Huh? Why did bally stop hii~?!" Jasdero whined, who had obviously been enjoying himself.

Suddenly, with a tremendous, "POP!" and a big gush of air, the ball burst. The sound of the two boys screaming was lost in the pop, and they fell, moaning. The strands of electricity-looking thing came flying out of the ball as it burst, returned to Chike, and sunk into her hand as the girl smiled evilly.

"Hey!" Devitt exclaimed, rubbing his behind as he got up from his sitting position, "What the hell!? We'll kill you!"

"Hii hii~!" Jasdero added, his face implanted in the ground, and his bottom sticking upwards, oblivious to the fact that his words weren't even words.

Chike smiled innocently, as Devitt and Jasdero ganged up on her. _Wait…when did Jas get up?_ Chike thought mildly, still smiling without a single worry.

The two kept getting closer, a murderous glint in their eyes. Chike smiled confidently, and as they got closer still, she lunged forward, catching the two off guard, and had them in a headlock in moments.

"Mwahaha!" She yelled, pretending to laugh animatedly. "I win this round!" She let go of them suddenly, and with an 'oomph!' from the opposing boys, they fell to the floor in a heap.

Jasdero whimpered slightly as he rubbed his blond head, frowning deeply up at Chike. "We weren't contesting hii~!" He chirped, Chike replying with sticking out her tongue.

"Exactly, you annoying little bitch! We'll kill you!" This loud comment came from Devitt, who looked as if he wanted to tear Chike apart like a hungry, rabid dog. Well, that's how it looked like to Chike anyway.

There was a silence, where Chike glared full-heartedly at Devitt, all the hatred and annoyance materialized into one thin beam, drilling an imaginary hole through Devitt's head.

Devitt continued to glare at Chike, reminding of the offending girl of a complete and utter psychopath with his messed up hair and crazed look in his golden eyes. Neither of their glares wavered, but Devitt started to feel a weak sense of uneasiness forming at the pit of his stomach, and no matter how hard he tried to push it away, it persistently bobbed back up.

Then he blinked.

Devitt was suddenly in a headlock, receiving a rough punch in the head. "Don't worry," Chike said in a sweet, no, too sweet voice, "I still love you too…" there was a mocking tone in the sentence, her fist drilling into Devitt's head as he yelped in surprise and pain, noises that sounded a lot like chocking issuing from the back of his throat.

"Alright!" Devitt growled, elbowing Chike in the ribs so as to make her let go for a moment, where she pretended to cry mockingly and then latched herself onto Devitt again, just for the heck of it. "Alright! Getoffame!"

Chuckling, Chike jumped off and started skipping around Devitt, humming one of those tunes that get stuck in your head easily. The raven-haired boy lashed out irritated at Chike and caught her by the ankle, which lead to her to lose her footing and trip, smacking her chin against the hard wooden floor.

"Auuugh! Bastard!" she yelled, sitting up from her position and rubbing her chin in a feeble attempt to make the irritating numbness evaporate.

"It was your fault!" Devitt leered mockingly at her, his face distorted as he tried to get a reaction out of Chike who was glaring at the raven-haired Noah with loathing. When her expression didn't change turned away and started muttering things under his breath, which sounded a lot like, "gonna get killed…" Or, "I'll kill you…"

Chike rolled her eyes, and stood up, the throbbing pain in her chin slowly subsiding. She turned her back to the two, her hands on her hips, to hide the fact that her face was scrunched up in pain. "Why are you guys here anyway?" She mumbled, trying to sound as if she had a very good point, which in her opinion, she did.

"It thought you had to go hunt down that cross bastard." Chike stated, turning to face the two with new found curiosity. Now that she thought of it, why _were_ they here, lying around in the mansion? "It was direct order's from the Earl to kill him you know. Sennenkou's gonna get pissed if you fail…" _Again…_ Chike thought, although she kept her mouth shut about it.

The two seemed to tense up slightly at the mention of Cross's name, and both quickly looked away so as not to meet Chike's prying eyes.

"Jasdevi…" She sighed, rubbing her temple as she felt the creep of an oncoming headache. The musty smell that lingered disobediently around the room didn't help too much either.

"Okay, we failed, all right?!" Devitt exclaimed, grudgingly admitting their defeat. "That red-headed Cross bastard is exceptionally fast when it comes to running away!"

When Chike gave the two a skeptical glare, Jasdero desperately continued. "It's true hii~!" He screeched, jumping up and down in a way that he thought was convincing. "And he's been leaving us taxes! Everywhere hii~!" Devitt smacked his brother upside the head at this point, a clear expression of annoyance and anger splattered across his face, as he muttered something along the lines of, "Don't tell her that, idiot!"

"…Taxes." The twins couldn't tell if Chike was being incredibly blunt because she thought they were completely pathetic, or if she didn't believe them.

Jasdero nodded vigorously – Devitt was looking away, his arms crossed stubbornly - his eyes wide as he pleaded silently for the girl to believe him. Chike didn't seem to make a move to acknowledge his words then, or any time in the near future.

"Taxes." Chike repeated, giving them a lazy, half-eyed look that told them unmistakably, "Pathetic dumb ass". Devitt growled under his breath at Chike's lack of imagination and understanding.

"Yeah, taxes." Devitt spat, looking up at Chike with anger, due to the fact that he was still sitting on the floor. "The bastard's been leaving us taxes as he runs away. It really getting on our nerves!" Here he smacked the heel of his leg against the floor, which equaled to him clutching the indicated foot, muttering pained curses under his breath.

"So then…" Chike drawled, walking smoothly around the two boys in a taunting manner, "…why are you here instead of trying to look for him?"

The two paused, looking at each other with obvious uncertainty. "Ummm…well, see…"

"We're taking a break hii~…"

"Uhh…well, yeah...exactly what he said…"

"Hii, hii~! We're taking a break hii~!"

"Yeah! You have a problem with that?!"

Seeing as the two's uncertainty had quickly evolved into impatient anger, Chike kept her mouth shut to avoid getting them more pissed than they already were, considering she was quite a pro at getting them pissed, even if they were considered best friends.

"Okay, okay, a break…" Chike muttered under her breath, as the two started yelling about random things, although their words were indistinguishable as they were also slurring their words together. But Chike thought she heard the word, "llama" being screamed out a couple of times.

"Okay, calm down!" her attempts to settle down her friends went hurtling to the wastebasket immediately as Jasdevi started to scream even louder than ever before. Something about pink bunnies abducting earth. Huh.

But now Chike was getting impatient, and the two things in front of her, that were good for nothing but distractions, wasn't helping much either. So now, Chike decided she had a couple of options.

One: keep yelling until they stop.

Two: Ignore them and start rummaging through their things.

Three: Leave.

Or four, which was blank because the option was, "do something else."

Chike pondered on her decision for a while. One was immediately out, because that would make more noise, and later on, she would have a sore throat. Why should she have a share in pain when it was Jasdevi who were being annoying?

Two wouldn't work either, because from the start, ignoring something as annoying as those two objects that were wasting space was just impossible. And besides, rummaging through their things might be the end of your life. Or happy life, anyway. You'd be disturbed for the rest of your living years, your normal thoughts pushed away because of the twins' room. There were piles and piles of dirty clothes everywhere, which made Chike wonder why the two never wore anything else besides what they were wearing right now, and there was a distinct odor of rotting flesh. There were probably a bunch of dead akuma maids underneath all the rubble on the wooden floor, although the room had become so cluttered, that not one inch of the dark cherry wood could be seen.

The third option was considered, but Chike figured that if she did leave, boredom would swallow her up completely, so that wasn't going to happen.

So that left number four: do something else.

Well, that sounded pretty good to Chike.

SO she went over to the two idiots, who were still screaming their lungs out, and bashed them both roughly on the head.

Obviously that was a bad move, since the two continued to scream, only that their volume had raised to a point that wasn't even humanly possible. In fact, the astounding volume of their voices made Chike topple backwards in shock.

"Owww…" She muttered, as she got up, and glared at the two that were still screaming, although they weren't even trying to form words now. "Ass." She breathed in annoyance.

The two stopped screaming immediately. "Bitch." They said, turning to her as if they were robots that were programmed to do so. Chike stood there, her mouth slightly ajar, as the two then got up form the floor, where they had been sitting the entire time, and stretched. _…That….that's all it took…? _The thought swam through her head like an annoying goldfish that was easy to get distracted with.

…And because Chike was in a state of distraction, and shock, she didn't complain when Devitt and Jasdero dragged her out of the room.

----

"Hey supervisor, who do ya suppose that is?"

Komui turned to glance at Reever, who was sitting lazily on the couch in front of the large, and slightly grainy, screen that viewed the entrance of their headquarters. Some others from the large group of scientists moved so that Komui could get to his destination easily, but most just made him weave through the large crowd. The Chinese man strode over to Reever and looked over his shoulder at the screen. The screen was being taken by one of their golems, that slightly represented a bat, and it showed the gloomy and damp exterior from outside.

And there, standing outside in the cold in a short-sleeved blouse and a skirt that ended right above her knees, was a short girl that looked no more than 11 years old. She seemed to have light brown hair that hung in pigtails, reminding Komui much of Lenalee's beautiful hair.

Reever kept looking at the girl with mild curiosity, as Komui started to ponder on Lenalee's beautiful hair. "Supervisor?" He asked, turning to look at the supervisor, who was still in dreamland.

"Supervisor."

No response.

"Komui!"

He continued to stare off into space. Was that drool he saw? What on earth was he thinking about?

"…Supervisor… Lavi's touching Lenalee's thigh."

The result was incredible. At once, Komui had gotten out of his trance, and was holding a large drill like object that had seemingly popped out of thin air. He was wearing a serious, no grim, expression on his usually hyper face, as he glanced around icily for the indicated red head that, Reever was sure, Komui wanted to hurt very badly. Everyone in the room sweat-dropped at their supervisors obsessed, but typical, behavior.

Once Reever, along with the help of Johnny, Tapp and some others, had finally hammered into their supervisors head that Lavi wasn't even in the same country at the moment, let alone Lenalee, and after Komui stopped crying when he re-realized (for about the 587th time) that Lenalee wasn't offering him coffee with her gentle smile like usual, he finally joined the others at the large screen. Their attention was once again returned to the girl in the screen, who was now looking around mildly.

"Hello?" She called, turning again, so that her back was facing the golem. When there was no response for a while, the girl tried again. "HEY! Answer me dammit! I fricken know you're there, so say something! I'll kill you if you don't, you f—"

"Alright, alright! Calm down!" Reever exclaimed, exasperated at the young girl's sudden swearing.

The girl turned to look at the golem with an expression full of spite. And despite the fact that the girl looked like she wanted to kill someone at any available moment, the scientists couldn't help but get slightly red in the face as they marveled at her…well, absolute adorable-ness. The big chocolaty eyes with her wavy hair made her look like some kind of doll taken right out of a doll shop.

Her large brown eyes would have made the girl look absolutely adorable if she didn't look like she was going to lung at you at any moment. "About time!" she yelled, now ganging up on the small helpless golem, pointing her finger at the circle in the middle that represented an eye. Unfortunately, the golem didn't have teeth like Timcampy, so it could do nothing but waver uncontrollably under the girl's hard gaze.

After a few moments, Reever glanced over at Komui, who was now enjoying himself with a new cup of coffee. "Supervisor…" He started, getting the older man's attention, "Are you sure you didn't get a letter that there'd be a new excocist?"

Komui paused; looking up at Reever with a blank expression masking is face. "Well…" He muttered, looking up at the ceiling in wonder as his finger rested on his chin in thought. "General Socalo _did _send a letter saying he'd be sending a new exorcist here, but…" He glanced at the screen again, doubt evident on his features, "he said the person was 17."

The girl, who had obviously heard Komui's comment, looked up with murderous eyes. If looks could kill, then blood splatters would have been the only remains of the two scientists.

"I…" Reever and Komui could feel the temperature in the room drop a couple of degrees as the girl started speaking in a frighteningly low voice. "I…_AM _17!"

There was silence from the large group of scientists for a moment as they looked at the pixilated image of the girl's pissed off face with wide eyes, trying to process the information that was thrown at them. That girl…_17? _Was that humanly possible?

Komui bent down next to the screen, and, somewhat unsurely, spoke into the small mike that was positioned on the headphones he was idly holding against his ear. "Um…little— I mean, miss? What's your name? Did someone called General Socalo send you here?" He interrogated, trying to sound nice, and not, well, completely baffled at the girl's age.

The girl growled, as she glared into the camera on the golem. "Don't even _try _to treat me like a kid," She stated, pointing her finger at the golem threateningly, "cuz you are so gonna regret it."

Komui sweat-dropped nervously, as the science group fidgeted, as if someone was watching them closely from soemwhere. "Ummm…well," Komui continued, trying with all his might to make himself sound like he was dealing with an adult and not a mere child, although that proved to be nearly impossible, considering that the so-called-new-excocist looked like she was 11 years of age, "you'll have to go through the inspection test first before we can do anything…"

The girl's angry features suddenly lifted, to be replaced by an expression of confusion. Tapp got a slightly bloody nose, which went mostly unnoticed, as most of the scientists were glamouring at how cute she looked without her mask of pure murderous rage, that, as far as they could tell so far, she wore often.

"Inspection test…?" the girl muttered under her breath, still giving the golem a questioning look as if the small machine was going to give her the awaited answer.

A slight groan caught the girl's attention, and she turned to look at the large, distorted, even comical stone face that was carved into the wall above the large steel door. A few moments passed as she stared at the face with an expression between confusion and boredom. Just as she was about to turn back to the golem to make another snide comment, the face made an enormous lurch, and was soon nose to nose with the girl, who despite her ferocious nature, looked utterly shocked at the stone statue's sudden agility in movement.

"X-RAY EXAMINATION!" The face bellowed, and thick beams of blinding light shot out of it's two, perfectly circular eyes. The girl just happened to be the one caught under the spotlight, and although her arm automatically went up to shield her eyes, she was unable to see anything for a good 10 seconds.

After the face ran it's beams of light across the girl several times, the lights shut off abruptly, causing the girl to blink as she saw colorful spots appear in midair, and with a gruff, "CLEAR!" from the face, it swung back to it's original position, the now stony mask it wore expressionless.

The girl stared at the face for a few moments in bewilderment, but the loud groaning of the steel doors opening snapped her back into reality. She watched as they were slowly drawn up, and hesitantly walked inside as soon as they were fully open, revealing a gothic, medieval hallway behind them. There was a crowd of people on standing there, glowing with expectant smiles. Obviously, everybody had heard that she would be coming. _How troublesome… I hate crowds. _She thought silently, as she strode up to the man at the front, who had shoulder-length black hair, and was wearing a white coat, that seemed to be a fancy version of a lab coat. He had glasses that made him look sharp, and a goofy smile splattered across his face. Next to him was a man with sandy hair that stood up in long spikes, who was holding a stack of papers. Looking around the impressive hallway with shallow interest, she walked over to the glasses-man, and stopped a few feet away from him. There were many other people there too, but she was just too lazy to pay them any attention.

"So…" The girl snapped her attention back to the man had spoken. She recognized that voice. It was the man who didn't believe she was 17… She glared at him full-heartedly, making him shudder visibly, although a very forced smile still tugged at his lips. "So…err…" He started again, "what's your name?"

She stared at the man, which she had to look up to do since she was only up to the bottom of his ribcage, and then, very unexpectedly, kicked him right where it hurt. The man made a sound that reminded the girl of a choking flamingo, (don't ask about the random choice of bird…) then fell over, clutching his injured… spot.

The other men, turned to look at the girl with bewildered and scared expression. Sandy-haired-dude's eye twitched as he stared at the girl with fear, and backed up slightly.

The girl smirked contently. These people seemed like easy prey. _They'll make good slaves…_ she thought menacingly, a maniacal smile crossing her should-have-been-adorable face.

This girl, this absolutely ferocious, murderous, blood-thirsty girl, was now, an exorcist. Her grin grew wider. This place was going to be fun. She could tell.

"My name… is Mimi."

----

A/N:

This chapter really fun to write, probably because it's the first chapter with some humor in it. XD well, I'm not really sure where Mimi's gonna go with this…but, oh well. Review plz!


	4. The Wrath of the New Exorcist

Colorless

----

Chapter Four:

The sandy-haired man, who had introduced himself as Reever, led Mimi down the large, gothic hallways. The glasses man, who Reever had said was called Komui and was the supervisor of the Black Order, had gone to some random place, moping at Mimi's unaffectionate attitude towards him. The rest of the science department was supposedly trying to stop Komui from making anything dangerous to hurt Mimi in return. Mimi grinned as she recalled the supervisor's pathetic expression when she had kicked him.

"Well," Reever started, pausing when Mimi glanced at him, which looked like a threatening glare to say the least. "Uhh… I guess I'll give you a tour around the place for now, since the supervisor doesn't seem to want to take you to Hevlaska yet…"

Mimi blinked. She had no idea what a hevlaska was, but she didn't want to show any signs of weaknesses by asking, so she just continued to walk as if she knew exactly what Reever was talking about.

Reever glanced at Mimi behind his shoulder, obviously expecting Mimi to ask about their strange looking exorcist friend, but since the said girl didn't seem to want to ask any time soon, he shrugged it off and continued walking.

Reever had shown Mimi the lounge, training areas, the multiple corridors of rooms, bathing places (although they didn't go inside), and finally the cafeteria when Mimi talked. "Hey… those guys aren't exorcists are they" she stated, nodding towards the several people clad in beige, mostly men, who were sitting scattered about in the large cafeteria. "… Am I like, the only exorcist here?"

Reever nodded his head to Mimi's question. "Yeah," He said glancing down at the shorter girl who was looking lazily around at the polished tables, "you're the only exorcist at the headquarters right now. The others were all divided up to go look for the generals…" He said, shrugging, then nodding towards the men in the beige colored coats, added, "Those are finders by the way. They accompany exorcists on missions, and often go to a place where an Innocence is rumored to be to check it out before exorcists come to the site. They're real helpful." He explained, his hands in the pockets of his long, white lab coat. He glanced down at where Mimi was… only to find that she was _not _there.

1…

2…

3…

Finally realizing the situation Reever was in, panic enveloped him; he was afraid that she had gotten lost even if it had only been about 10 seconds that he had his eyes off her, and glanced around quickly. He was just about to go sprinting down the corridor in search for her, when he spotted the small teenager walking calmly toward the counter where food was ordered. Aka, to Jerry.

Reever sighed in relief that he hadn't lost sight of the new exorcist within 30 minutes of her arrival, but then rolled his eyes at her carefree, silent actions. _How can someone like her really be 17…? _This thought was never answered as Reever followed the indicated girl wearily.

"— baked potatoes with gravy and fried rice in the biggest bowl you have." Mimi had just finished her order when Reever had reached her. Jerry looked a bit (just a tiny bit though) astounded, but nevertheless smiled, called Mimi a, "Sweety pie", (which earned a menacing growl from the girl) and went back into the kitchens to get the food ready.

Reever paused for a moment before speaking. "… Don't you wanna see your room before you—"

"Screw you Slave #1." She stated bluntly, cutting off Reever's sentence, still staring at the place where Jerry had been momentarily with a half eyed glare. "I eat when I feel hungry, and coincidently, I'm hungry, so stop your yappin' and go save me a seat." Here she turned to glare at Reever, her finger pointing toward the large cafeteria where the several shiny oak tables stood, mostly empty.

"S-slave…?" Reever stuttered, taking a surprised step back from the girl who was a good two heads shorter than him. Shaking his head, and regaining his senses, Reever took back his retreating step confidently, so that he was back where he was seconds before. "Hey now, listen—"

"NOW!"

"Yes Ma'am!" The Australian man squeaked, scrambling towards the multiple tables, to save his seemingly new "master"s seat, along wit his neck.

Mimi nodded triumphantly, before turning back to the small window where Jerry was now standing once again, staring at Mimi, his mouth slightly agape. "Did you just…"

"Yes." She said curtly, and taking the large and over loaded tray of food from the Indian man, added, "Thank you, Slave #2." She then turned on her heel, not a single bit of food falling off her tray, and walked toward the table where a shaken Reever sat, awaiting the new exorcist.

"S-slave…?" Jerry muttered, giving nearly the exact same reaction as what Reever had given. Shaking his head with a slight frown, Jerry sauntered back into the kitchens, muttering things that had to do with rude little children.

Reever raised his brows as Mimi walked over to him. The girl was receiving several confused stares from the finders, who knew all the exorcists, and had obviously not recognized the girl. There was probably another reason for their merciless staring, and Reever could guess what. There was a large pile of random food from a large variety of countries, topped with a huge, blue bowl of what looked like fried rice on her tray. And although it was nothing compared to what Allen ate on a daily basis, considering Mimi's size… that was a lot.

"Are you a parasitism type?" Reever asked as soon a Mimi had sat down across from him, as that was the only solution he could find to explain her obviously large eating habits. He didn't get the answer he wanted, although he should've expected as much by now.

"Shut your mouth, dog." Mimi growled irritably in between bites as she shoved large spoonfuls of fried rice into her mouth at a sickeningly fast pace.

…_Dog? It's a dog now…? _Reever rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably as he watched the tiny girl in front of him shovel food into endless pit she called a mouth. "…Uhh… Mimi?" He asked tentatively, as the indicated girl gulped down the last of the apple pie that had been hiding under the rest of the food, although those had been eaten previously as well.

Mimi sighed contently, a cute smile adorning her lips for a split second, before it was replaced by a murderous scowl. "What?" She growled at Reever, a vein pulsing on her temple for no apparent reason. The sandy-haired man gulped.

"Yeah, Mimi, if you're done we really should get goin—"

"Shut up. Call me Master."

"…What?! No way, sorry but… no." was Reever's uncertain, and perhaps slightly confused, reply.

Mimi glared at Reever, and he swore the already-dark aura around her had lowered in temperature by several degrees. A crooked grin stretched across her face, to a point were each end nearly reached her ears.

"Say whaaaaat…?" She drawled in low tone, sending violent shivers up and down Reever's spine. He gulped as a dreading feeling overcame him, and stared at the small girl with panic-stricken eyes that were the size and shape of saucers.

_Why does it have to be _me _who has to put up with this…? _Reever thought miserably as he mentally admitted defeat, waving a miniature white flag in surrender in his mind's eye.

He snapped back into the dreaded reality when Mimi cleared her throat impatiently. He glared at her, although it was a pitiful attempt and barley even reached the, "stare" level, let alone a glare. His unsteady gaze was pushed back in the maximum of 3 seconds by Mimi's sharp, piercing one, and Reever sighed in defeat.

"Alright, alright…m—" Reever cringed at what he was about to say, "…M-mas…ter…" The said man let his head drop as the simple fact that he was quite pathetic at the moment dawned over him.

"Eh? What was that?" Mimi drawled glaring at him with one of her thin eyebrows raised, in a daring kind of way.

Reever growled at Mimi under his breath as a vein pulsed repeatedly on his temple. He tried with all his might to fight the oozing feeling of her dignified glare drilling holes through his head, but alas, as his thin shield that was keeping him from going insane started to wobble, he gave in. "Alright, master!" He exclaimed, earning a few quizzical expressions from curious onlookers. "Happy now?" He added feverishly, glaring at Mimi with savage eyes. This glare was met easily with a bored stare from Mimi.

She grunted with a little frown, in a way that referred that she had wanted him to squirm a little more so that she could punish him.

Mimi huffed and looked away, looking slightly angrier than a moment before. The reason for this, even a scientist like Reever could not figure out. "A dog should obey their master without hesitation." She muttered quietly and childishly, then glaring at Reever with her cheeks blown up with air, added loudly this time, "Now go show me my room!"

Reever tripped out of his seat and practically sprinted away to do what his newly appointed, "master" had told him to do, tears of misery streaming down his face as he did so. Mimi had to run to catch up with him, all the while yelling curses at him to stop, but to no avail. _Stupid dog…_ she thought menacingly. _No dinner for you tonight…_

----

"So this is your room…" Reever said, leading Mimi along one of the many stories where multiple identical doors stood, until he stopped in front of one, which looked exactly the same as the one next to it, along with all the other doors in the blasted corridor.

The mentioned girl blinked, staring at the door as if it had eyes and was challenging her in a staring contest. After several long moments, she frowned a little, and glared up at Reever expectantly.

"O-oh, sorry…" He muttered hurriedly, as he swung the door forwards for her, revealing a medium, slightly toward the smaller side, room, lit only by the sinister gray light that filtered through the stained glass window. Underneath the said artwork, was a single sized bed, made and ready for a tired someone to crash in. Next to that was a small side table with a simple lamp perched on top of it, with a faded poster of a black rose on the stonewall behind the light fixture. A desk rested against the opposite wall, vacant or the most part, take the small and neat stack of fresh paper in the center of the smooth wooden surface, waiting to be written on.

Mimi walked in slowly, hands on her hips in a dignified sort of way, and inspected the room as if it had to pass a certain grade to earn Mimi's approval.

Reever had a sudden urge to slam the door, locking Mimi in, and run for it, but then he weighed the odds. He was a scientist that spent most of his days sitting around, researching for some experiment that Komui had assigned him, or else filling out paperwork that the supervisor was supposed to do. Mimi, on the other hand, probably ran around quite a lot on a daily bases, not to mentioned trained with her innocence, (Reever also wondered what her innocence was, since Mimi had yet to show them), and probably exterminated several akuma a day.

Reever thought it was safe to say that Mimi would most probably catch up and beat the living daylights out of him within 30 seconds. Perhaps less. So he stood obediently by the doorway, waiting for Mimi to give him his next order, just like a good puppy should.

The sandy-haired girl did another turn around the room, and then gave a small nod of satisfaction that was accompanied by a content grunt. She then turned briskly on her heel, marched out the door, and nodded at Reever, who closed the simple slab of wood quietly.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, where the two just stood there, as if thinking of what to do next. Actually, that was exactly what they were doing, and no matter how hard they used their brains, they couldn't think of anything.

"So…" Mimi finally retorted, still staring into space with a bored expression layering her face. "So," she repeated, "What now?"

This seemed to be quite the sensible question to Reever, as that was the thing the two were having trouble thinking up. But of course, the tiny bit of energy that Mimi had used to open her mouth and for words with her vocal cords went to waste, as Reever had no answer for her.

Fortunately, someone else did all the answering for them.

"Reeeeeeeveeeeeer!" A familiar and several volumes too loud of a voice yelled, along with loud thudding footsteps to add to the, "I-am-a-retarded-person-and-have-nothing-better-to-do-than-bother-others-with-my-umimportant-crap" vibe that the person was giving off with his loud and obnoxious yelling.

That person skidded to a stop when he spotted Mimi, and quickly hid behind Reever, and peered over his shoulder at the indicated girl, as if she was a mortal enemy that would spread a deadly disease if you got within a 5 foot range of her. Mimi's eyebrow twitched visibly, and an abnormally large vein pulsed at her temple. The idiot Komui had come to bother them again did he? Well, he was going to go back where he came from, tamed, and his tale between his legs.

"What's the rabid dog doing here? I thought I told you, Slave #1, to go lock him up in the dungeons." Mimi said out of the blue, pointing a childishly accusing finger at Reever's face. The Australian man turned to look at her with an expression that indicated that Mimi was a complete idiot, and that her words hadn't made the smallest bit of sense. Well, that was understandable, considering that her words were formed randomly, without any thought behind them.

Komui made a sound that mimicked a growling dog from the back of his throat as he glared down at the offending girl. After realizing that glaring would do him no good, for Mimi and Komui had an ocean between them when it came to the level of their glares, he decided to out do her with authority.

He stepped out from behind Reever with a strait back, trying to look professional, and pushed his glasses up with an index finger. "I would like it if you wouldn't call any of my subordinates, "Slaves," "Dogs", or anything close to that category." He said curtly, receiving a stare that couldn't be less interested from the sandy-hared exorcist. And then added, almost as if an after thought, "Please."

Mimi glared at him full-heartedly, willing with every nerve in her body to drill real holes into his face, instead of the imaginary, non-real ones that she had had to put up with for so long. Since Komui didn't seem to budge under her cold glare, (Although he was actually terrified, and was nearly at the verge to pee in his pants), Mimi finally thought to consider his suggestion for the first time.

If she agreed, she would lose all her slaves she had made, and all the material she had to make more… no, wait. He only said that she wasn't to _call _then slaves or dogs or anything like that, never that she couldn't treat them how she wanted to. And…

She grinned, and turned back to the supervisor who was still standing, as stiff as a board, in the exact same place and position as 25 seconds before.

"Fine," Mimi stated promptly, a mischievous grin stretching across her face, "but on one condition."

Komui relaxed just a tiny bit, waiting to get this over with.

"You'll have to be my personal slave for the rest of the year."

"Fine." Komui said quickly, who hadn't put any thought in his words, let alone actually listened to Mimi's sentence.

1…

2…

3…

"WHAT?!?!?!" Komui yelled, as realization hit him in the head like a brick. But by then, Mimi was already shaking his hand triumphantly, her ever smug grin etched into her features.

"It's a deal then." She replied, ignoring Komui's furious reaction completely, and biting her lip to hold back laughter, to a point where she drew some blood.

Still vigorously shaking the hand of an outraged Komui, she turned to Reever with an evil grin lighting up her face. "You are dismissed Slav— I mean… uhh…" She let go of Komui's hand with a blank expression on her face. _Crap… what was his name again…? _She thought. She had never considered remembering the man's real name, since she was planning on calling him Slave or Dog for the rest of her stay at the Black Order.

The Australian scientist rolled his eyes, and sighed. "Reever." He muttered wearily, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Reever Wenham."

"Okay Reever! You can go now!" Mimi said, suddenly transformed into a very cheerful little girl indeed…

The said scientist looked around nervously, and then turned and stalked off silently. Unknown to Mimi and Komui however, Reever started running as soon as he turned a corner, whooping and yelling in glee of getting out of the new exorcist's wrath.

---

Mimi looked up at the now tiny circle that used to be a large, long cylinder of corridors in awe. Herself and the supervisor, who she now called Slave, much to Komui's annoyance, were zooming down on a floating, green-blue _elevator _that reminded her of some sort of jewel. They seemed to be going down quite quickly, since Mimi could feel the wind sweep through her hair and across her face, but she could see nothing, due to the fact that everything was pitch black.

Mimi nearly tumbled over when the elevator came to an abrupt stop. "Little warning next time?" She growled over at Komui, as she clutched onto the railing on the side of the so-called elevator for dear life.

Komui didn't even glance at her when she had uttered her little request. In fact, he seemed to be staring at something _in front _of her. A clearly perplexed expression adorning her face, Mimi turned to look at what her slave was staring so intensely at.

She never even got to utter a sound, let alone scream, when the transparent tentacle looking things started to wrap around her. She struggled, punching and kicking with all her might, but with no avail; they only wrapped around her tighter. They gave off a static like feeling, that felt slimy at the same time, which, to say the least, was uncomfortable, maybe even disgusting. It felt like it the tentacles were touching every nerve in her body. "Get…. Off…of…me!" Mimi growled, still wriggling around in hopes of loosening the grip that the monster had on her.

_I really didn't want to do this since I don't even know what it is… but… _After resolving briefly, Mimi opened her mouth wide, and then clammed it shut on the nearest tentacle. The was a slight gasp from above, and with some difficulty, Mimi glanced up, still biting on the tentacle, harder than before. Her eyes widened, and she absentmindedly let go of the thing, that she now realized was an arm, which drifted away from her for a second, before rapping itself around her arm again.

And then she finally did it. She screamed.

Loud and shrill, it echoed around the lightless room as if millions of bells were chiming at the same time. And she continued to scream until even Komui had to cover his ears.

The large face with the lower half of a woman, and the rest a scaly mess, dipped her head, so that her nose was nearly touching Mimi head. _"Hush… exorcist… I am… not … your enemy…" _It said, in a voice that reminded Mimi of a soft breeze and a mighty waterfall at once.

Her screaming died down eventually, as her throat started to hurt, and the monster didn't seem to be affected by her exceptionally loud scream, and she glared up at the looming face of the thing. Her attention snapped back to her slave when he started to speak, seemingly to the large monster.

"Hevlaska," He called, not giving the slightest sympathy to Mimi who wanted to end his life by pushing him off from the corridors above, into the dark pit. _It would be so easy to make it look like an accident… _Mimi thought longingly, sighing miserably in the giant clutches of Hevlaska. "What is her synchronization level is with her innocence?" His voice snapped Mimi back into the reality that Mimi despised so much at that moment.

_Synchronization level…? _She looked up at Hevlaska in wonder. Mimi was getting used to the weird feeling of the tentacles by now, and Hevlaska's features weren't that scary after you got over the shock of being grabbed by big, random… _things_.

Mimi frowned when Hevlaska's large face closed the gap between them, her forehead lightly toughing Mimi's, which was starting to sweat, due to her previous struggling. The indicated girl suddenly felt at piece, and closed her eyes, as consciousness seemed to slip away for a moment, and her mind was filled with a bright, welcoming light.

"_3 percent…" _Hevlaska's voice echoed softly around the room, as her head started to glow faintly,_ "17 percent… 35 percent… 49 percent… 65 percent… 73 percent… 81 percent…" _Hevlaska drew away from the small exorcist, dragging Mimi away from her comfortable daze in a way that the girl thought, rough. _"This child's Synchronization with her In…Innocence is 81 percent…" _Hevlaska said melodically. Mimi's legs wobbled slightly when she was set back down upon the metal platform gently, watching Hevlaska's hands withdraw with a faint hint of longing in her chocolaty eyes.

Shaking her head slightly to rid of the faint remains of her daze, she turned and glared at Komui for an explanation. "What the hell do you mean by Synchronization? What's an Innocence anyway?" She demanded, all memories of the soft, fulfilling light chased away from her mind.

"A century ago," Komui began, still refusing to glance at Mimi, "a cube was found."

"…A cube." Mimi stated bluntly, a hint of doubt lacing her voice.

Komui turned to look at her with something that could be called a glare. "Yes." He said, pushing his glasses up professionally. "A cube." Mimi opened her mouth to make a snide remark, but Komui beat her to it. "That cube contained a message on how to use it. It was called "God's Crystal", which has special powers, but we refer it as Innocence. It is the only thing that can kill Akuma. It resides in your Anti-Akuma weapon." He explained briefly, earning an uninterested grunt from Mimi.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the history lesson." She grunted. She could feel Komui glaring at the back of her head with spite. "Anywho," She added, louder this time, "What's with the synchro— whatsit thing?"

"You mean Synchronization?" Komui asked smugly, emphasizing how he could for the word perfectly. Mimi growled in retort, and stepped forward menacingly, raising a fist that had a pulsing vain sticking out of it. Komui hurried to finish his sentence as Mimi took another step forward. "Hevla was just checking to see how compatible you were with you innocence! The higher the percentage, the easier it is to activate your weapon without having the user in danger!" He nearly wailed, holding his clipboard in front of him like a protective shield.

There was some sort of pie graph on the slip of paper clipped onto the board, reminding Mimi of a target. Her finger's itched with desire to punch it, but refrained herself, somehow, and huffing, looked away. "What ever." She muttered, crossing her arms as a vein pulsed on her forehead.

"_Child…" _Mimi tuned her expression toward the large, looming figure that gave off the radiant glow. _"… I see… a great future ahead of you… " _Mimi blinked up at Hevlaska, who seemed to glow brighter than a moment before. _"… Child of Wrath…" _

_Well… that suits her. _Komui thought mildly, a couple moments later, as Mimi and himself zoomed up back into the brightly lit corridors.

----

A/N:

Sorry for the short chapter, and the lame prophecy… I couldn't think of anything else! Well, thank you to wolfpup026 for encouraging me on this chapter!

Review!

D-n-h


	5. Oh Shit

A/N: Ummm…….. I _WAS_ going to say something, but I forgot. Read on.

Colorless

----

Chapter Five:

Leaping over a large and jagged boulder that had been blocking Mimi's path a few moments ago, the said girl huffed in fury. As soon as she had shown Komui her innocence, and when he had seen that she was quite capable of taking care of herself, he had practically kicked her out of the building after giving her the exorcist uniform, which she was wearing right now, demanding her to go and join the Socalo's team in finding her master. He had made a finder go with her - ignoring how the beige clad man had clearly not wanted to go with the, "Murderous Child", as the finder had put it - so as to make sure that Mimi had a way to communicate, in case for when she _accidentally _broke her golem, which, everyone at the Black Order agreed, would be within the first three days.

She growled in frustration as she heard a quiet voice coming from the other side of the large rock.

"Ummm…. Miss exorcist…?" It whined, and having no other choice, unless of course she left him, but that would have been rewarded with a hell of a lot of trouble, Mimi turned back to the boulder, annoyance evident in the restless way she moved.

"Fine! Stand back!" She yelled, an irritated expression flickering across her face, but then it disappeared, as she added, "No, actually, hide. You'll get killed if you don't."

There was a surprised intake of breath from the finder, which may have been a gasp, and after a few seconds of faint scuttling of feet, and a weak, "I'm ready!" from the man, Mimi shoved her hand into the skirt pocket of her new exorcist uniform. She found the pockets of the uniform ridiculously small, considering how short the skirt was, (She wore tight black shorts underneath because of this) and therefore was quite surprised when she found that her innocence – a set of bronze knuckles with studded tips - had not fallen out of her pocket. Well, she didn't know what she wouldn't have done if they had, but she wasn't thinking about that then.

Shrugging, Mimi slipped the knuckles on, and with a defiant, "Innocence, Activate!" from her part, there was a blinding flash of light and a moment later, when the striking green light faded, in the place of the rather ordinary bronze knuckles, were a set of giant bronze… well, hands. You couldn't even call then gloves, since they were each twice as big as her head. They were made out of a hard, light and yet sturdy material, and each fingertip was slightly sharp, as if the hands came with nails, all to add to a more realistic effect. It was bizarre that a small little girl had an innocence fit for the Incredible Hulk.

A ridiculous amount of steam drifted up from the gigantic hands, and they glowed lightly orange, although Mimi didn't seem to feel any difference in the temperature. Slamming the palms of her innocence against that large boulder, she glared up at it, as if it had done her a lifetime of wrong.

"Molten Rage."

With a loud, sizzling kind of sound, the huge boulder's grey scheme started to mold into a furious red as a frighteningly fast pace, and steam started rising up from it. The cold, damp temperature of where Mimi and the finder were seemed to rise continually, to a level where they could have called it, "Blisteringly hot".

Small cracking noises issued from the core of the white-hot stone, and Mimi finally jumped back, just as another series of much louder cracking thundered through the rock.

Shielding herself behind both of her innocence-clad hands, the boulder exploded with a brilliant white light, and several large chunks of flaming rock flying in all imaginable directions, making small craters in the ground as they crashed into the damp dirt.

The sandy-haired girl landed form her perch in a large tree, and landed lightly beside one of those said rocks. Huffing, she sauntered through the flaming rubble, until she spotted an utterly and completely terrified finder, hiding in a small cave like crack in the large cliff wall. He was pushing himself against the farther side of the cave as if he wanted to become part of the rough stone. Mimi frowned slightly.

"Oh." She said, peering into the cave, her head cocked to the side slightly. "You're alive." The finder was sure he heard a hint of disappointment lacing the small exorcist's words, and shuddered visibly.

"Uhhh…" He muttered, hesitantly stepping towards the entrance of the cave. His eye's landed on the flaming scenario around him, and he took a double take. "Wha—" He then looked down at Mimi's hands, as her innocence was still activated, and whimpered lightly. "Did…" He indicated weakly over to the rocks, which was now starting to melt into large puddles, which soon faded to a coaly black color. "Did…. You do this?" He asked meekly, somewhat dreading her answer.

Giving him a look that suggested that he was a pathetic little insect, she rested her hands on her hips, (not that her hips were anything special) innocence and all. "No, duh." She replied, a defiant aura surrounding her as she said the words. Walking away from the stunned and fearful finder, Mimi deactivated her innocence, and then turned to glare at the beige clad man with impatience. "Are you coming?" She inquired frowning, as the finder didn't make a move to follow her.

The poor man sighed miserably, and thought what most people think when they have to deal with Mimi.

_Why me…?_

----

Sighing, a dark-haired Noah walked down a vague dirt path, threes littering the soil around it, along with the so-called "twins", who were now, obviously _trying_ to lose their voice, as they blabbed on in an exceedingly loud volume. Chike tried to drown out the mindless blabbering that Jasdevi were producing from those large, gaping holes they called mouths, by replaying the scene that had taken place a littler over an hour ago repeatedly in her head.

_Flashback_

"_Chike-pon! I have a job for you~!" The millennium earl called, his ever-present grin stretched across his long, elfish face. He was rocking back and forth happily – despite the gloomy exterior of the rest of the room, it's only salvation being the roaring fire in the large fireplace – in the rickety old rocking chair, knitting something that just started to represent a sweater. _

_The indicated girl looked up mildly from the cartoon she was reading, her body resting sideways in a large, maroon armchair by the fire, asking silently for the Earl to continue. Chuckling heartedly, the Earl did just that. "I want you to help Jasdevi go and find General Cross. They seem to need a little help don't you think~?" He requested, earning a disbelieving look from the raven haired Noah. _

"_You knew that those two were here Sennenkou?" She asked, and then when he nodded, added reluctantly, "Oh… Well, I don't have a choice do I?" _

_The Earl shook his head, chuckling lightly again at the girl's slightly put out expression. "You don't want to go~?" He asked curiously, knowing all too well that Chike and Jasdevi where like two peas— no, excuse me, _three _peas in a pod. _

_Sighing, Chike turned to the Earl again. "Nah, they were just being more annoying than usual today…" The Earl chuckled at the girl's reply, "… That Cross dude must really be getting on their nerves…" _

"_So you'll go Chike-pon~?"_

"_...Sure."_

_End Flashback_

… So. Why had she agreed back then again?

Ah yes. Because she _didn't have a choice._

Chike huffed as her two other companions started screaming at a random sparrow about how it was in their way, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the bird itself was perched innocently in a tree and the idiots where down on the ground. The sparrow stood it's ground though, and – here, the sparrow went up several spaces in Chike's favorite animal list – lifting it's tail feathers, released the gooey white substance from it's behind, which landed smack on Devitt's hair.

The said Noah yelled in surprise and disgust, which immediately turned into fury, the hysterical laughter from Jasdero filling in as the background music to the entertaining show. The raven-haired boy jumped up, attempting to latch onto the branch the sparrow was on… but he… couldn't quite reach it. As he repeatedly tried to hopelessly catch the thick wooden branch, the sparrow fluttered away cheerfully, letting out a mocking cry: 5 more points for the sparrow!

Chike joined Jasdero with the laughing, until she felt like she was going to vomit out her stomach. And although that was unlikely, she didn't want to take any risks, so trying to slow down her breathing – and getting hiccups in the process – Chike finally ceased to laugh. Panting slightly, she looked up, only to find Devitt glaring savagely at them. This may have succeeded in making Chike less amused if the dripping white bird-poo wasn't slowly oozing down his forehead. Thus, she cracked up all over again.

"Shut the hell up!" Devitt screamed ferociously, although it was not nearly as effective as he wanted it to be because of the offending bird-poo. And he wasn't about to just brush something as sick as crap that had come out of a bird's ass with his HAND. Not to mention that his hair was going to smell for the rest of the day if he didn't look for someplace to wash it off…

He looked around hopefully for some sort of stream or river, anything with fresh water so that he could at _least _get the gooey crap off of him. But, much his dismay, there was not a single drop of fresh water to be seen in the thin forest. Devitt sighed in irritation, as he looked up at his bangs with spite, disgust, and defeat.

Perking up suddenly, Devitt turned to his brother with an almost comical hop. "Jas! Didn't you bring a water… bottle…?" His golden eye twitched in disbelief as he stared at the blond with his mouth agape: Jasdero had just swallowed the last drop of water with a relished sigh, and then looked over at his brother curiously, wondering why he looked so much more pissed off than he had a moment before.

Flushing red in anger, Devitt opened his mouth to yell. "YOU IDIOT!" He screamed, leaping at his twin with contorted rage.

Jasdero continued to squeal in discomfort. "Ewwei!" He whined, tongue sticking out in distaste. "Dev is going to get bird-poo on me hii~!" the two continued to wrestle, Devitt furiously trying to bite Jasdero, where as the blond of the two was relentlessly trying to stay away form the poo stained Noah.

Chike stood there, her laughter dying down as she lost interest in their fight. Shivering, she pulled her short jacket a bit closer towards her, and looked up at the clear blue sky. _How can it be so cold when it's so sunny…? _She thought disappointedly, glaring in the general direction of the sun, so as not to hurt her eyes. No wait, the skies where not entirely clear. There was a dark cloud obscuring a small faction of the vast blueness, and Chike turned her attention to that, only because she was getting bored of the bright blue color of the bitter sky.

Wait. That wasn't a cloud. It was smoke.

"Hey Dev…" Chike said, catching Devitt's irritated attention, as he snarled in her direction fiercely. She pointed up towards the smoke, his gaze following closely. "Didn't you say that there was a village near by where Cross was staying…?" Much to Chike's amazement, Devitt caught on instantly. Whooping, he ran, full-blast towards the direction of the smoke, excited at the sudden possibility of a warm shower and getting his mission done in one go. Of course, Jasdero followed his brother out of pure instinct, leaving Chike to catch up to them. _Wow… when did he get smarter? _She thought mildly, as she flung herself after him, determined not to get lost within the first two hours of her job.

----

"Have you seen a red-haired Phantom of the Opera cosplay man-slut?" Devitt asked the landlady of the rather expensive looking inn of the small village they had arrived in, several minutes after the bird-poo incident. The three had changed into their human forms: Jasdero and Devitt still had their black and blond hair, but their golden eye's had morphed into a pine green, and they had a slightly tanned skin tone instead of their usual ashen one. Chike on the other hand, - who still had the same hair color - had light brown eyes with a goldish, greenish tinge to it, and her skin was somewhat similar to the twins, although not as tan.

The said lady - a young, pretty, brunet girl with dark blue eyes - looked at Devitt with surprise. "Do you mean by any chance, a handsome gentleman with long red hair wearing black clothing?" She asked politely, looking away from her previous customers. When Devitt nodded gruffly, she smiled brightly. "Oh yes! Are you his friends?" She asked again, looking at the other two, Jasdero and Chike, along with Devitt.

An enraged expression crossed Devitt's face, and he opened his mouth to yell at the girl how they hated the man's guts, but Chike slammed her hand over his mouth in time, smiling at the girl in what she hoped was an apologetic way. "Uhh… no. He's our…" She desperately tired to think up of an excuse, "our uncle, actually. We heard he was in the area, and thought we'd drop in to say hi." Chike attempted to smile sweetly, which, I assure you, she needed practice with, but since the brunet girl smiled back, Chike thought she had done a passable job.

"Oh, marvelous!" The girl squeaked, clasping her hands together excitedly. "He is _such _a nice man! Let me get the keys, so you can see your sweet uncle!" She turned, and passed through a doorway behind the counter that the Noah's hadn't noticed before then. In the girl's absence, Devitt mimicked vomiting, as he strongly disagreed with the girl's words. This earned snickers from his two companions.

The girl returned soon after, followed closely by a large, buff woman, who Chike had mistaken as an extremely ugly man, until she saw her long hair and large chest. "Uhh… Hi?" Chike greeted, slightly intimidated by the grotesque scowl that played across the woman's face.

"This is my Ma." The girl introduced happily. The twins stared at the girl incredulously. How could a pretty little girl like her have a _man _of a mother? "She's the landlady of our inn." She continued, smiling cheerfully, as if there was nothing strange at all about her mother's appearance.

"…Oh." The twins said, staring up at the woman with shock. Chike sighed. _This isn't going to end well…_ she thought. The two never knew about being polite, and staring ruthlessly at someone was the worst first impression, especially if the opponent was touchy about his/her appearance.

As if on cue, the large woman raised a thick, bushy eyebrow, and glared down at the two boys. The threatening aura around her seemed to sizzle, as she spoke in an unusually gruff and _deep_ voice. "What are you brats starin' at?" She growled, sending violent shivers up and down the Noah's spines. Well, Devitt and Chike's spines anyway. Jasdero didn't seem to have enough brain-cells in his head to understand when to be scared.

Looking up at the woman's brutish face with wonder, Jasdero scrunched up his nose slightly in distaste. "Yer face." He answered matter-of-factly. Chike and Devitt smacked him upside the head in union, exasperated and mad expressions splattered across their features, causing for the blond to fall backwards.

Turning to the to the _real _landlady hurriedly, who's annoyed expression was quickly turning into one of anger, the female Noah apologized in what she thought was supposed to be a sincere way, Devitt nodding vigorously behind her to emphasize the point that they were, "_sorry". _After a few moments, although her expression didn't soften, the landlady grunted, and handed them the keys, but obviously didn't feel kind enough to lead them upstairs to the room of their so called "uncle", and left them to tend for themselves. The pretty brunet girl smiled at them apologetically, but had to return to her other customers, so the three Noah's decided to trudge up the stairs alone.

As soon as they got out of earshot and the brunet girl's line of sight, Devitt smacked Jasdero again, although the amused grin etched into his face didn't go unnoticed. "You idiot!" He laughed, "She might have not let us go in because of you!" Despite his harsh words, he was grinning like the idiot he was, his brother and Chike joining in his laughing along their way to Cross's room.

Chike glanced down at the key number once her laughing had softened. Room 12. She started laughing again for no reason, and then looked up at the other two who were pointing their guns at each other, retarded grins plastered on their face. "It's room 12… just a couple more doors down…" she muttered, looking up and around, searching for their destination.

"It's here hii~!" Jasdero suddenly hissed, pointing quietly to a worn out door, with a rusty 1 nailed to it, and a shadow of a 2, which must have fallen off a while back.

The three shuffled around the door as quietly as possible. It reminded Chike of some sort of crime show where they had just found out the enemy's hideout, and were about to take him in. She grinned mischievously, and on the silent count of three - they somehow all knew when without a single word being said - they kicked the door open ferociously, causing it to dent the wall slightly where it had slammed into with incredible force.

Jasdevi pointed their sleek (for that time period anyway) golden guns, which, Chike had to admit, she was slightly jealous of, at the large bed that sat in the center of the room… only to find it empty. There was a moment of silence as they looked around the room awkwardly; their eye's twitching from time to time. Everything was neat, as if it had never been slept in, and not a single personal looking item was lying about. It looked as if nobody had been in here for a while. The only thing in the room that proved that anybody had been inside was that the window was open, it's blue curtains fluttering slightly in the faint breeze.

"Hnya?" Chike managed to squeak out, when they confirmed that the General they were seeking did no longer inhabit the inn.

Devitt looked at her oddly. "Hnya? What the hell Chike?" he muttered irritably, rolling his eyes as Chike flipped him off. They were now somewhat disgruntled and pissed, seeing as Cross was at least two steps ahead of them. "That bastard ran away AGAIN!" The Noah boy yelled, kicking the bedside table with as much force without breaking the delicate looking piece of furniture. Obviously, he had hurt himself more than that defenseless wooden table, as Chike and Jasdero watched him hop around the room, hissing swears they had never even heard of before.

"Smooth…" Chike muttered, rolling her eyes absent mindedly, then her attention diverted to the ready-made bed. Climbing onto it, she reached for the slip of paper resting lightly on the soft, creamy colored sheets. "Hey guys." She called flatly, turning her head in their direction with a bored stare. "This says it's from Cross."

At once, two other heads pressed themselves against Chike's, each trying to get a good view of the spidery writing on the paper. Golden locks, burnt-brunet and raven black hair mingled together at their sad attempts, but finally, once everybody stopped pushing, they could all read peacefully.

_Dear Freaks who are following me, _

_First off, you really need to improve your stalking skills. I could hear you downstairs, and I left. You two idiots are pathetic. _

Here the three Noah's glanced at each other, their brows raised. How could he have packed so quickly? And Cross thought that only Jasdevi where following him… Shrugging, they continued to read the letter.

_It's also really wasting my money, since I had just gotten to this inn today, and now you have to drive me out. And thus, I concluded, that having a two-on-one match would be fair so I can kick your scrawny little asses. I'm sure you'd want to have a fight with me eh? So meet me at the Maiden's Gull. A bar at the edge of town. I'll be waiting for your ugly faces to show up. _

There was a quick but good sketch of a man with long hair wearing a hat at the bottom of a page, along with a quickly scribbled signature. Chike sweat dropped. It was quite obvious this was a trap. She looked up at her companions, only to find them reaching for the doorknob and discussing about how they would be able to kick Marian's ass any day.

Grabbing them by the furry collars of their shirts, she dragged them back harshly to the middle of the room, all the while muttering things about retarded brothers, seeing as she considered the two exactly that.

Letting go of the two Noah's, who plopped onto the floor and nearly banged their heads together, and sitting down contently on the bed herself, Chike glared at them, the letter scrunched up in her hand. "You know…" She muttered, eyeing them skeptically, "I've known you for seven years, and I've figured that you were idiots, but is it just me, or have you just gotten _dumber?_"

The two looked enraged by her comment, and sprung onto her, both of them getting her into a headlock, as she elbowed them both in the ribs fiercely. All three of them yelled in anger and pain, as all three flew in three different directions, knocking into three separate walls. They sat up wearily, and then glared at each other, their piercing eye's trying to bore holes through each Noah. There was a heavy silence, as spite passed through the three, each one thinking bad thought about them. (Well, except for Jasdevi, since they're like, one person…) A loud laugh brought them back to reality. Well, brought Chike and Devitt back anyway. The two stared at the blond, who was pointing around the room, and screeching "Broken! Hii, hii, BROKEN!"

Chike glanced around the now, broken and cracked room. Small bits of debris littered the floor from the cracked plaster walls, and the once-made bed was now a mess, it's sheets flopping over the side of the soft mattress unconfidently.

This made Devitt start to cackle too, and, despite the fact that she knew this was more bad than good, Chike followed their example. The room was filled with pointless laughter, when the door slammed opened once more. The three stopped laughing abruptly, and turned look at the door with mild curiosity. The person standing there, thick arms resting on her hips, glared down at them furiously.

The landlady.

The beefy bulk of a woman looked around the room, and growled under her breath as she rested her gaze back onto the three Noahs. "Do you think you're going to get away with what you've done to my room?! Seven lamps fell downstairs because of all your ruckus too!"

_Ummm…. Crap?_ Chike thought, blinking her eyes widely, as she finally realized the situation they were in. _We gotta get out of here…_ She looked at the door with a hopeful glance, expecting to see a space that they could slip through, but her expression was infected by a grimace. The landlady took up the _entire _space of the doorway. _Okay, time for plan B. _

Grabbing her brother's, or what she considered her brothers anyway, by their arms, she practically threw them forcefully out of the open window, their ruthless screaming accompanying them all the way down, until a painful thud was heard, along with weary moans. Turning a fraction in the direction of an enraged landlady, she stuck out her tongue, and flicked her off, a mocking smile playing at her lips, as she purposely retuned to her Noah form. Her skin slowly grayed, crosses bloomed on her forehead, and her soft brown eyes turned into a piercing yellow. Shrieking in fear, the landlady fell backwards, pointing a stubby finger at Chike's newly revealed form. "Devil's spawn!" She screamed, her grotesque face distorting into something even uglier than before.

Chike raised her brow irritably, spite and annoyance filling her mind, as she glared hatefully down at the woman, who seemed to have lose all capability of standing back up, let alone speaking, as she spluttered half formed words. "What was that?" Chike said in a venomously low voice, striding over to the brutish woman, and leaning down so her nose was inches away from the landlady's.

The woman screamed to a pitch where Chike swore she heard dogs barking outside. She jumped back, determined not to lose her hearing because of some paranoid old hag, and, seeing as she wouldn't shut up even after Chike had put a great distance between the two, she raised her hand, and a bolt of black-purple electricity went zooming towards her. As soon as the tips brushed her, the woman stopped, as a squishing, cracking sort of sound issued out of her body.

Opening her mouth wide, she gave one last shrill scream, which seemed to rattle the entire inn, before her face exploded outwards, chunks of flesh splattering against the corridor walls, as her long, matted hair was stained with foul, steaming blood. Her faded brown dress was instantly covered in gooey remains of her face, and thick muddy clumps of flesh stuck to the fabric as if hanging on for dear life.

Chike scrunched up her nose in distaste. Although she had managed to jump out of the line of fire to avoid any bloodstains on her clothing, the smell of the woman was horrible. Like rotting fish and eggs. Nevertheless, she stepped up to her, and dipped her finger into the blood, and lifted it to her lips, licking it off without a second thought. She stood there a moment, slamming her lips together, before her face turned green.

"BLEH!" She said, gagging, as she tried to spit out the taste of the blood that had already been swallowed. "Shit… that was bitter…" She muttered, glancing back at the woman.

Then she realized what she had done.

"…Whoops. Sennenkou's gonna get mad at me…" She sighed miserably, smacking herself in the head, scolding herself without a single word being said, at her lack of self-control. With another disappointed sigh, she jumped out of the window in pursuit of her two companions.

Jasdevi were waiting impatiently for her. There were a few men who seemed to have been knocked out, or rather, frozen or burned to death, around the twins. They glared at Chike fiercely, and without a single utter, they all turned back into their human forms, seeing as Jasdevi too had morphed back into Noah's to fight the men.

"What took you so long, idiot?" Devitt growled irritably, who earned a rough elbowing from his female companion.

Chike huffed, but then a mischievous smile cracked across her face. "I just…" She searched for the right words, as an ear-splitting scream of a young girl came from the inn they had just walked away from. "I just… got carried away…"

Looking skeptically at Chike, the two decided not to dig deeper into the case.

----

The three now stood in front of an old, worn down looking bar, with a broken sign that had the words, "Maiden's G—" On it. The rest of the wooden sign looked as if it had been blown off by some drunken, crazed person with a baseball bat.

Tumbleweed rolled by as the three stood there stupidly, debating whether they should go in or not. Chike had discussed with the two how she had thought that it was a trap, and although they didn't seem fully convinced, they were still wary.

Shaking his head to rid of unwanted thoughts, Devitt gathered up his confidence, and stepped forward, Jasdero automatically following him. Chike sighed, and her hands shoved into her pockets, walked toward the door as well.

The twins kicked the door open, their backs facing each other, as they pointed their shining golden pistols at the frightened customers, that were sitting, scattered around in the… large… bar? The boy's found their faces flushing furiously, as they looked around the place in disgust. Chike, who had just entered the building after the two, looked at them with confusion, wondering why they looked so utterly disgusted and well… embarrassed.

_I don't think they know HOW to be embarrassed… _Chike thought mildly, as she looked around as well. As her gaze reached the front of the room, she froze.

_Ah. That's why._

This, bar was… a strip bar.

And by the looks of it, Cross had run away again.

----

**A/N: Now, don't think that I'm a perv or anything, cuz I thought that I should just make it a little different than what Jasdevi had been to before. … Oh god. What am I gonna do with myself…? *****Sigh* oh well. Review!**

**D-n-h**


	6. Desperate Deeds

Colorless

----

Chapter Six:

They were silent for a moment, as the performers, (who were wearing very little clothing…) and the audience stared at them, wondering why such young children where roaming in a place like that.

"Well…" Chike started, taking a tentative step back towards the door, lightly tugging at the other two Noah as she did so. "We'll just be… going." The boys seemed too stunned to say anything and nodded dumbly, as they allowed themselves to be pulled out.

But an incredible force prevented Chike to exit the bar, as it dragged her back in, painfully tugging at her arms. …No, actually she had bumped into a bulky, and slightly gay looking man, (Due to the fact that he was wearing a tight, pink tank top that was cut short enough to reveal his abs…) who had at one point, unnoticed by the Noah's, went and stood behind her, blocking all gaps of the doorway. Her eye twitching, Chike turned her head to look at the man with something like dread and irritation, as he grinned evilly.

"There you are you little brats!" The man said, grabbing the three teenagers by the scruff of their jackets, including Chike. The three squirmed, forcing themselves not to use their powers, determined so as not to get into trouble with the earl.

The man held them at arms length roughly, avoiding their kicking legs and flailing arms. He wasn't looking forward to getting bruises any time soon. Growling angrily, Chike elbowed the man as hard as she could in the ribs, only to feel a bolt, that didn't feel unlike static, run up her arm, leaving her elbow feeling prickly. "Augh! Funny-bone!" She yelled, clutching her arm, causing some other men nearby to chuckle.

"Let…go…of…me!" Devitt yelled, sticking out his fists in all imaginable directions, hoping to get a shot at the man, who was still clutching at them as if they were dirty rags.

"Yeah, yeah! Rapist! Let go of Jasdevi hii~!" Jasdero squealed desperately, kicking pathetically at the man, trying to somehow kick him where it hurt, although failing.

Well, he _was_ failing. Until that is, he actually accomplished what he was aiming to do.

The brutish man – who Chike, now that she had gotten a good look at him, thought resembled the ugly woman she had slaughtered – yelled in pain, as he clutched his delicate spot, thus, dropping the teenagers. While the man was making pitiful noises and swears, the Noah's made for the door as if running for their lives. They were fast too, but those men must have been working out, since when they reached their destination, there was a hoard of masculine males standing, waiting to help out their fallen comrade in capturing the three pests.

"Shit!" Chike yelled, skidding to a stop before she smashed into some other grotesque man's rancid belly once again. Devitt and Jasdero had done likewise, and they too were thinking of a way to escape without causing too much commotion. They looked around the bar, trying to avoid laying their gaze upon the stage, (Well, Chike anyway) looking desperately for another entrance, or rather, a warmly welcomed exit.

Unfortunately, there was none.

The three groaned disappointedly in union. They were going to have to get out of here with force. As this thought passed through their minds, the men lunged, catching the Noah's off guard, but since they were quite skilled with this kind of thing, they were able to jump nimbly aside. The men landed in a large dog-pile, and many irritated groans issued from them.

A twitch tugged at Chike's lips, as the twins burst out laughing, their shrieks ripping through the tense air that had built up in the bar. But the amused aura around the teens soon dissipated as the men jumped at them again, large tree-trunk like arms outstretched, as if trying to give them a bone snapping hug.

Jasdevi dodged the small group of brutes that came hurling at them lazily, and threateningly pointed their guns at him. The men, who were now in small mound once again, paused, as they stared into the black barrels of the twin's guns.

Chike, meanwhile, had a larger group of men to deal with. Why, she had not a single idea, but nevertheless, she proceeded to aim kicks and punches at them, seeing as she had no weapon to threaten them with. Within a minute, the men were down, and Chike went to stand with her companions, a clearly visible vein pulsing on her forehead as she glared spitefully at the defeated males.

Backing away slowly, and pointing the gun at each person in the bar at a time, the three backed towards the door, and finally turned and ran…

…Only to be caught again by the ankle. The three of them tripped at exactly the same time, smacking their chins against the ground, as something held firm grips on their legs.

"Fucking A!" Chike yelled, clearly frustrated, as she looked behind her to find one of the fallen men had grabbed her ankle, a large grin spread across his rough, ugly face. The dark-haired Noah growled again, as the man stood up, and held her up by her foot, looking at her as if she were some sort naughty dog, who needed a punishment.

Holding her shirt down so that it wouldn't reveal her stomach, Chike looked around to find Jasdevi in the exact same position as her, although they were pointing their guns unstably at the man who had managed to take hold of the two. Unstably, because the man, who had grabbed both of them, was swinging the twins back and fourth as he walked towards Chike, thus never letting Jasdevi to have a stable aim.

Another man who had his hands free – he had long, sandy-colored hair that were clumped together into vague dread-locks - came up to the two men holding the three Noah, grinning, he bent down, holding a slip of paper in front of them. Frowning slightly the three read over it quickly.

_Two idiots like these will be coming to pay off my debt. Even if they protest, make sure they do it._

_Cross Marian_

The twin's eyes widened. Filling the bottom half of the paper was a crude picture of Devitt and Jasdero. Very crude, but it had all their standing-out features, which made it easy to identify as the two teens hanging before the men. "Cross said that you brats would be working to paying of his debt." The man said in a gruff voice, grinning at all three of them, showing rotting brown teeth, along with large gaps in between, as if some had been knocked out.

Chike made a face as the man's rancid smell reached her nose. _Has this guy ever heard of __**brushing his teeth**__? _She wondered, grimacing as the smell went away at last. But then Chike noticed something.

"Hey!" She yelled desperately. "It says only those freaks! So why are you dragging _me _into this?!" She exclaimed, frantically motioning with her hands to make emphasis.

Jasdevi looked at her disbelievingly, and growled furiously. "You traitor! You good-for-nothing ass hole! You're just gonna ditch us, and leave us in this _PIT?!_" They screamed, reaching for her with flailing hands, hoping to at least pull out a few strands of her burnt-brunet hair.

This question was replied with a simple, "Yup," as she smacked away their hands irritably, glaring up at the men with an expectant expression covering her face. There was a moment of silence when the men stared at her, almost debating to see if they should let her go or not.

Growling under her breath, Chike struggled in the unwavering grasp. "Let GO of me!" She muttered rashly, trying to kick the man's hand into dropping her, although that just seemed to enrage the man. He shook her into silence, as she saw the world around her spin, and obediently hung there like a rag-doll.

The man holding grinned sickly as Chike glared white hot daggers up at him, although it didn't seem as frightening as it would have on a normal circumstance, considering she was up-side-down. The Tarzan-wannabee, as Chike came to call him in her mind, chuckled at her pathetic position, crumbling the note up in his large hand.

"Well," He growled – or it sounded like growling, even though he was smiling – cheerfully, "You're with them aren't you?" Nodding towards Jasdevi who were still wailing miserably, kicking the man who held them captive with half-hearted blows.

Chike looked hesitantly toward her brothers. What should she do? If she stayed, who knew what was going to happen to her, but if she left, she wasn't sure if the twins could get out of this situation alive.

Aw well. Who cared about them?

Shaking her head vigorously, and making a face as if the mention of the idea that she knew the two punks was repulsive, Chike ignored the shouts of protests being shot at her from behind. This contained several swears, which was only to be expected, but Chike had become immune to Jasdevi's swearing far too long ago, and didn't feel the slightest bit of offence anymore.

But then, just when Chike thought she was going to be able to walk out of those doors alive, the stupid brute turned to Jasdevi and just _had _to hear their opinion.

And of course, Jasdevi exclaimed, with all the drop of desperation they could squeeze out of their scrawny bodies, that they indeed did know Chike, and had known her for seven years. Oh how she wanted to curse them… so badly… She didn't even ponder on the fact that she didn't have the capability or knowledge to curse someone, but nevertheless, the temptation was intense.

"So!" The female Noah turned her attention grudgingly towards the dread-locks man. "You'll be working here until Cross's debts are paid." Here he grinned cheekily, showing his disgusting brown teeth to the unwilling audience once more. "Every single cent."

Chike glared at the Tarzan-wannabee with all the spite she could muster, her arms crossed idly as she hung upside down. _Actually… I wish he'd put me down. I think the blood's getting to my head… _She thought, as she saw the room get slightly fuzzier than a moment before. Looking over to Jasdevi, she saw that they had the same expression that she imagined was playing on her face too.

_Ugh… I hate you Cross… _

----

"… You look like a slut." Devitt confirmed, looking at Chike's newly given "Uniform" – which looked as if it had come out of some perverted man's dream – with bored eyes. She had just stepped out of the changing rooms, a disgusted grimace adorning her face.

"I _feel_ like a slut. And believe me, it doesn't feel good." Chike grumbled furiously, tugging down the leather top – that in her opinion, was much too short – with one hand, as she tucked her loose hair behind her ear with her other. It would have originally been a sleeveless, maroon leather top, but, for some retarded reason, the straps were purposely made large, so that they fell down her shoulders, although the top was tight enough that it stayed up by itself. Her pants weren't as bad as she had been anticipating though: They were tight, black, leather pants, only on the outside of each of her legs there was a large gap in the leather, which was loosely stitched with black thread. (Sort of like Jasdevi's pants. But with the gap on the side, instead of being on the front and back). A thick, black leather belt, with a large golden buckle, along with golden studs littering the leather, held up these pants.

The Tarzan-wannabee – who had introduced himself with a proper name, but Chike had never been very good with names, and now called him Tarzan – had given Chike the choice of becoming a waitress or a… ahem, _"Performer"._ Chike had chosen being a waitress without a second thought, much to Tarzan's displeasure – which irritated Chike, leading her to yell at him – and thus, the uniform. It was still too slutty, in Chike's opinion, but Tarzan didn't seem to care what her opinion was, and had made her wear ridiculously high heels to go with her outfit as well…

So now, Chike was practicing walking in these treacherous shoes in the backroom, trying to avoid spraining her ankle, where Jasdevi were watching, very amused indeed. The twins, being male, had gotten dish washing duty, and cleaning up the kitchen. Chike had desperately tried to get one of them to trade with her – preferably Jasdero, seeing as he had longer hair – but to no avail. Neither of the twins wanted to dress up like a slutty wait_ress, _and the men at the place were incredibly sexist, and would never even hear Chike's complains or attempts at reasoning with Tarzan.

Wobbling slightly, Chike took another step in the high heels, toward the stack of crates at the other end of the room, where Jasdevi sat, watching her progress with her walking slowly. She reminded them of a small child, learning to take their first steps, still unsure on their feet. Devitt chuckled, earning a threatening glare from the female Noah, as she walked the last couple of steps, all elegance forgotten, and kicked him in the shin. Hard.

_Well_, Chike thought, looking at Devitt, who was withering on the ground pathetically, with a satisfactory smile, _these shoes are good for one thing at least._

A gruff yell was what brought Chike out of her trance, and she looked lazily behind her shoulder at Tarzan, who was standing in front of the worn out doorway. There were bright lights, laughter, and music coming from the other side of the dull walls, which Chike considered was her only layer of protection against losing her sanity, and perhaps, (although the chances were about 0.00001%) her virginity. She grimaced at the thought, and shook her head slightly as Tarzan stepped out of the doorway, nodding in the direction of the sickeningly idiotic laughter that Chike was trying to avoid.

Looking down, Chike drilled the thin, hard heel of her shoes into a crack in the floorboards, an expression of annoyance and grudging acceptance mingled across her face. After a few moments of a light scraping sound of her shoes in the crack, she sighed, and glared at Tarzan, her fists clenched tightly at her sides, as she stiffly strode toward and then by him, making sure to step on his toes roughly in the process.

A squeal like noise erupted from the man's throat. He went rigid, trying with all his might not to show any signs of pain, although failing in a quite unsightly way. Chike grinned as she turned her head in Tarzan's direction a fraction, making sure the man saw her evil leer. His eye's widened at her mocking smirk, which widened the Noah's smile.

"Aww…" She said, shoving mock sympathy down his throat, "Did that hurt so much that you could cry?" Chike chuckled as the man looked at her in confusion.

The perplexed expression still lingering on his brutish face, Tarzan hastily wiped his evidently wet cheeks. He swore under his breath, his face lighting up with anger, when he saw that his fingers were, indeed, wet. Opening his mouth to shout something at Chike, he looked up….

Only to find that she was no longer there.

He stood there stupidly for several moments, the merciless cackling from the two eye-liner boys faintly covering for background music, although all the laughter from the main room drowned out most of their laughter.

Chike had won this round.

----

Growling under her breath, Chike exited the shady sanctuary of the back room, and entered the performance area hesitantly. She winced. The music was too loud, the laughing was too drunk, and the other various noises that Chike was too lazy to think about had a bad point to it, no matter how unnoticeable or discreet it was.

A vein popped into view on her cheek, as she glared at every possible surface in the bar. _How disgustingly __**radical**__… _She thought bitterly, letting her shoulder's slump forward in defeat. Although she and Jasdevi had the power to demolish of all the humans in this town within seconds, restraining themselves was necessary, considering that they would probably get in trouble with the Earl later. He seemed to want to concentrate on making his perfect scenario with the exorcists, and didn't want an insignificant incident like a small town being dispatched from the map to trouble him.

Chike understood though. A small town was barley nothing. They did this nearly everyday, and having to deal with the exorcist moving away from their carefully planned course (This course was planned by the Earl) to figure out what had happened was too much of a bother. Right now, Chike and Jasdevi needed to have a low profile, and keep it that way for a while, until they heard from the Earl next.

_How boring…_ These words wafted through her head for a couple of seconds before evaporating into nothingness. She stood there, gazing around at the glaring lights and (mostly) ugly customers, trying to squeeze out as much hate as possible into each glare.

Someone wolf whistled.

…25 seconds and a dozen more whistles later, Chike realized it was directed to her.

With an irritated aura intact, Chike cleared the clouds in her mind, and looked up, searching for whatever had created the submissive sound. She soon found it, due to the fact that the four burley men were waving almost hysterically at her were making quite a racket to get her attention. Chike stood there for a moment, weighing her options.

She could ignore them. They seemed to be nearly as annoying as her two comrades, Jasdevi, if not more. But then again, this was her new found, "job" and getting things done would pay the debt off quicker…

But if she went and tended to them, she might snap form irritation and kill everybody in the bar. Now that was quite a possibility, taking in the fact that she had a short temper…

Chike shook her head. She wouldn't kill anybody and get in trouble by the Earl because of having to serve a couple of brainless customers. She would _not _sink that low. Hesitantly, she looked up at the four men who were now waving at her somewhat impatiently, and sighed. _I guess there's no way out of it…_

She took a deep breath, and took a step forward, but then paused. Frowning, she looked down at her foot, which was now refusing to move. _Oh come on! It's not that hard… just walk over there and ask them what the hell they want! _Shakily, her foot moved forwards a couple more steps, but gradually growing smoother, and soon, Chike was at the table of the four men.

The four males didn't wait for Chike to utter a word, but instead yelled all at once, "More beer!" The Noah raised her brows, to a point were her hair covered them completely. _More _beer? The idiots seems too drunk as it was, and more beer was only going to give them brain damage, and take away several years of their lives.

But then again, Chike didn't care what the hell they did with the insignificant years they had left to live. They were worth as much as a little pile of dirt stuck on the sole of some worthless _human's _shoe. She smirked lightly at this thought, noticing that the four men had quite a resemblance to dirt themselves, seeing as their skin was gritty with dirt, and their old worn out clothes looked as if it had been thrown in a washing machine that was using mud and dirt instead of water and soap. They also reeked of rotten eggs and cheep beer, and Chike had to pinch herself so as not to take a step back from the offending smell.

But now Chike was pondering too long, and sensing the impatience from the men, shook her head to bring her attention back to the four imbeciles. "Is that… all?" She muttered, her face scrunching up as another waft of sickening odor drifted towards her. She swallowed the large lump in her throat, eyeing the men with disgust, who faces were now distorting even more due to the large drunk grins spreading across their revolting faces.

There was a pause, where all the outrageous music and howling from the rest of the audience seemed much more concentrated than before. The four continued to grin up at her stupidly, and Chike rolled her eyes. They were barely worth her time…

"Is that all?" She repeated sternly, crossing her arms and staring them down, menacing aura in check.

Evidently, the men were too drunk to notice that the air around them dropped by several degrees, and proceeded to grin up at her. Then one man did something.

Something daring.

But _really, REALLY, _stupid.

He reached out to Chike, and wrapped his arm around her waist _'flirtatiously' _sending about 10 veins on her face to pulse at a surprising pace.

"Why don't you come and sit with us baby?"

A dark shadow crossed over Chike's features as her fists clenched tightly to a point where small drops of blood started to drip to the floor. Jasdevi high on sugar, she could handle. A Skin Bolic beating up random maids during meals, she could handle. Tyki with his sarcastic comments she could handle. But drunk, ugly men, who were 3 times her age, _flirting, _(not to mention badly) with her, she could not.

The man was still oblivious to the murderous intent floating through the air that was growing rapidly next to him. So when a slightly bloody hand grabbed his thick wrist, all he though Chike was going, was returning the affection.

…How fucking _wrong_ could one person get?

A loud crack ripped through the air, although drowned out by most of the music and mindless noises, followed closely by a blood-curdling scream. Now, _that _got people's attention.

Nearly every head in the bar turned to the spot where the Noah was standing, her hand still latched onto the man's wrist, as the man howled in pain. His hand from wrist on was bending the wrong way. And Chike's fist was clenched around the crushed wrist, as if she were squeezing something as soft as wet clay.

There was no noise, except for the man's agonizing screams echoing dully in the background. Nobody spoke as Chike thrust the man away, earning a loud whimper.

There was a pause, as everybody continued staring at Chike dumbly, although fear was also evident in the stiff movement of the crowd. The dark-haired girl slowly turned her head to face the audience she was creating. She then looked down at the withering man flatly, then up again. _Whoops… maybe I went a little over board… _

She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps a loosely patched up explanation for this happening, but she never got to say anything. There was a huge crash, as if several large metal pans and delicate plates had gone crashing to the floor, accompanied by a loud shout.

"No way in HELL!"

"Get back here! We made a deal!"

"Deal my ass! I'm sick of this shit!"

Another loud bang, and the doors leading to the kitchen flew open, each slab of wood nearly rocketing off their hinges, and Jasdevi sprung out, their aprons long ago abandoned on the floor. They jumped over to Chike, shoved a bundle into her arms, and then literally kicked her out of the bar, following closely behind. She managed to land on her feet somehow, although the high heels made that task quite a bit harder than it would have been normally, and turned around to face her two comrades.

They were screaming swears at the people in the bar, while running away, leaving Chike to fend for herself. She growled as she roughly kicked the heels off, earning an, "Oof!" as it hit someone in the face. She grinned slightly, as she chased her fellow Noah's shaking her head in defeat. It was sooner or later the two were going to do that. Obviously, they chose sooner.

The three finally halted when they reached the end of the village, panting and laughing. After a while, Chike looked down at the bundle, to find that it was her jacket, wrapped around the rest of her clothing. She raised her brows, and looked down at her outfit. Crap. She was still wearing the slut uniform. So after she found a good bush to hide behind to change, and switched to her everyday clothing, she returned to the spot where the others were waiting, pulling on her jacket comfortably. The slut outfit was lying deserted behind the bush, probably never to be remembered again.

Noticing that her two companions were not waiting under the large oak tree as they had planned, Chike glanced around lazily, her hands stuffed into her pockets, as she absent-mindedly scratched the back of her leg with her other foot. _Ah… what was that word... _she thought, looking up at the sky in deep thought. She barely registered that clouds were starting to overcome the sky_, _grey and cold. _Was it… annoying? No… infuriating? Those too, but there was a word perfect for Jasdevi… _After a while she gave up. Forgetting words was her specialty, but usually it would come back to her when she wasn't thinking about words at all.

Sighing dejectedly, she looked back up. Perhaps she should start looking for the two idiots…? With a flicker of an irritated expression, Chike set out half-heartedly in search for her so-called-companions. Or rather, the two trouble-makers who she was forced be with.

She lifted small rocks with the tips of her shoes, calling the two boy's names with a voice that couldn't be called anything but monotone. Her sad excuse for looking for the two was soon ruined as she heard a cackle of laughter, immediately recognizable as Devitt's. She paused, glaring at a random rock for a moment, then with a "Tch" forming at her lips, she turned abruptly, heading towards the sound with a pissed face masking her features.

She stopped in front of a tree, no bush. A big bush, but a bush none the less. Her brows furrowed joylessly, as she noted the various flies and other bugs buzzing around that particular bush. White light from the cloudy sky reflected off the leaves, which turned out to be wet in something that looked like rainwater. There was another cackle of laughter; almost identical to the first, coming from the other side of the vegetation, and with a sigh, Chike finally resolved that going through it was the quickest answer to accomplishing her quest. She slid through the large, wet bushes, that stood taller than Chike herself, trying not to come into contact with the plants as much as possible, so as not to get her clothes wet. But, as to be expected, she failed, and when she finally emerged from the mass of leaves, there were several blotches of moist fabric garnishing her clothes.

She growled lightly in resentment when yet another cackle erupted from in front of her, supposedly now directed at the female Noah. A vein twitched on her cheek when she saw that it was indeed Devitt who was rolling around the slightly muddy ground, oblivious to the grime sticking to his clothes, and that his laughter was directed at Chike. She wasn't even sure why he was laughing at her, since she didn't spot anything particularly funny about her situation, but then she reminded herself: _Oh right. That's just the way they are… _

Sighing, she walked over to the offending Noah, and kicked him in the stomach lightly, causing him to "Oof", and then proceed to yell multiple curses at her. She replied with a rather colorful line as well, but just as she finished her sentence, she noticed something.

No, rather, smelled it.

There was an unmistakable scent of heavy _smoke _in the air.

And now that she thought about it, it was quite a bit warmer than it had been previously that day.

And, (She was quite surprised that she noticed this last) there were several screams in their air, along with a multitude of crashing and large sounds like gunshots.

Something clicked in her mind, and, with her golden eyes slightly wider than her usual half-eyed stare, she looked up from her idiotic comrade, to the view of the (somewhat) peaceful village they had been residing in...

Only to find that it was burning up in flames.

Suddenly, Chike remembered the word she was trying to remember earlier. "Obnoxious." She growled. "They're definitely obnoxious."

**A/N: Hola! This is D-n-h here~! Soooo… you may be wondering why I did the whole strip bar fiasco thing, so let me uhh…. Explain. So, you know the episodes with Jasdevi in the Ark, (If you haven't, go watch them. They're hilarious) and their flashback on their debt… labor? I happened to notice that all the bar were just, well, bars. And I thought, how is it that a womanizing bastard like Cross **_**wouldn't **_**go to a strip bar? So that's where the strip bar idea came from. Thanks for reading, and review!**

**D-n-h**


	7. And the Lights Went Out

**A/N: Real sorry about the super-duper long delay, (not that there was an actual due date or anything…) I was on serious writers block among other things. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy~!**

Colorless

----

Chapter Seven: And the Lights Went Out

Staring at the ruby red flames with slight interest and an immense amount or irritation, a deep growl escaped her dry throat, so that it came out sounding more like a dry gurgle than anything. Chike whipped around, turning to face Jasdero and his hysterical brother – who was now pushing himself up slowly, grinning like an idiot – and opened her mouth to scream bloody murder at them.

It was several explosions and a shower of purple light that stopped Chike form doing so though, and instead of the anticipated yelling, the female Noah turned to face the burning wreckage once more. Her normally intact mischievous expression had shattered, replaced by a mask of faint surprise, her rich golden orbs widened by the slightest fraction. The multiple clusters of the large, balloon shaped Akuma were quickly evaporating into bursts of metal and fire, in a way that seemed all too familiar to the three Noah's.

"_Exorcists"_ Chike hissed, immediately regaining her poise, as she scanned the burning wreckage of the ruined village, not unlike a hawk searching for a scrumptious mouse.

Making a face that suggested confusion and perhaps a bit of annoyance, Jasdevi approached Chike's side, their golden pistols pointing at each other's crowns in their trademark stance. "Say what?" Devitt sounded skeptical to a degree, as he also joined Chike in her search. After a few moments, he added, "I don't see anyone."

Furrowing her bows irritably, Chike grunted. How could the Akuma be exploding the way they were without any innocence nearby? It just wasn't possible. She ran her fingers through her hair, only to get them knotted up at the beginning of her ponytail. She scowled, and thought wistfully once again for a well-deserved haircut as she undid her ponytail, and then hastily tied it up again.

That was when Chike noticed the tiny green glow out of the corner of her eye.

Green? Chike blinked. She was sure as hell that this fire wasn't _nearly _hot enough to emit green – or any other color like it for that matter – fire. So that left one thing: Innocence. She swung her head in the direction she had seen the glimpse of this green light, and raised her brows in surprise. _They're hiring _kids_…? _Was the only thing that came to the Noah's mind, for what she saw in the flames and burnt wood, was a child, maybe about 10 or 11 years of age, clobbering Akuma with a large set of bronze _hands._ Literally. Hands. And despite the child's small and slightly frail appearance, she was pummeling the balloon like Level One's almost as if she were popping balloons with a needle.

… Except that the Akuma flew apart in large, melting chunks, creating craters where the flaming metal segments landed.

Chike stepped lightly to the side as a piece of detached metal flew towards her, a trail of smoke flying behind it in a magnificent arc. By the loud profanities that erupted behind her, she guessed that it had hit the twins.

She chuckled slightly as she glanced behind her, and saw that her predicament was indeed true. But there was no time to be fooling around now. If there was an exorcist, then it could foil the Earl's plans, and therefore, get the three teenage Noah in trouble. Trouble with the Earl was bad business; Chike had learned that within the first few weeks she had arrived all those years ago.

But by the time Chike had looked back towards the flaming debris, it seemed that all the Akuma had been dispatched, and the small, child like exorcist had taken her leave. Chike frowned. That was unexpectedly less interesting that she would have ever imagined. But then again, that was probably a good thing, seeing as the exorcist would have to go back to her original route now. The less action there was at the moment, the better for Chike and the twins.

A breath passed through Chike's chipping lips, in a way that could have almost passed as disappointed. Even though this was probably for the best, when Chike had seen that they had failed in keeping away the exorcists, she had figured that they could have a little fun. But seeing as the small innocence-user seemed to have disappeared from the Noahs' sight, she turned back around to the twins.

And then she proceeded to yell at them.

But regardless of her shrill screams, and Jasdevi's thunderous (not to mention cheeky) responses, the image of the small, sandy haired exorcist kept nagging her in the back of her mind.

_Where did I see her before…?_

---

"That was amazing Miss Exorcist!"

"Whatever."

"No, but really! I don't get sent out on missions too often for some reason you see… So I don't get to see too many exorcists fight. And you're new as well!"

"I said, _what. Ever._" Mimi replied heatedly. The annoying finder – Mimi had a vague memory of the beige clad man introducing himself as Goz – had been yapping away about the clash with the Akuma in the small village they had passed. As far as Mimi could decipher, there had been no survivors. Not a single one.

The small exorcist ground her teeth, as Goz's voice gradually became more distant to her mind. Not a _single _survivor. If only she had arrived there sooner… Glaring grudgingly down at her boots, she crossed her arms and huffed. Why was she remembering her hometown now, of all times?

_Why…?_

Non-existent flames danced before her eyes as her vision blurred with unshed tears. She blinked them back, and dried her eyes with her sleeves angrily. There was no time feeling remorse now.

Mimi remembered the damned supervisor Komui explaining briefly about Phenomenon's occurring where Innocence resides, but there hadn't seemed to be anything unusual about the village. The sandy haired girl furrowed her brows in thought. _So why had there been an Akuma attack…? _

She sighed. Maybe they had attacked only because killing humans was their job? Such and insignificant reason angered Mimi, but she knew what Akuma were. They were machines _programmed_ to kill humans. They didn't exactly need a reason to do so. Huffing, the sandy haired exorcist looked up at the sky absent-mindedly, only to realize that the day was coming to an end.

The golden sun was sinking behind the solemn mountaintops, spraying an array of warm colors across the afternoon sky. She saw a couple of birds flying back to their nests, turning in for the night, Mimi guessed. She turned sharply toward Goz – Who seemed to have been rattling on for the entire time – and said in a voice that implied great importance, "Give me the map."

Goz started at the sound of her voice, but obeyed without a pause. He pulled out a slightly crinkled piece of folded paper out of his pocket, and handed it to her. The said girl snatched it out of the man's hands, and unfolded it.

After a few minutes of reading the map carefully – she was no pro at reading these things – she reckoned that they were somewhere in Germany. Where they were in detail, was beyond her power of knowledge, and she was too prideful to ask Goz to help her. And perhaps another reason for her poor map-reading-skills was the fact that she was using a World Map.

But she really didn't care _exactly _where they were in Germany, as long as she got a general idea of their position. She just knew that they should be heading in the direction of India, where General Socalo was last reported to have been seen. Mimi huffed again. If she had known beforehand that she had to go look for her General, she wouldn't have left his side in the first place. She didn't even _care _that she was required to visit headquarters – She was supposed have gone with Socalo, but he stated that traveling to HQ by herself was to be her "Fist Mission", and he had sent her off by herself – now she felt that she had wasted a great deal of time.

"We're camping here tonight." Mimi declared, as she folded the map back up, and tossed it behind her shoulder carelessly.

Goz ran forward to catch the paper, in which he achieved, but then proceeded to fall flat on his face. Mimi glanced briefly behind her shoulder, cracked a mocking smile, and then continued to walk to her destined campsite. Goz pushed himself up painfully, eye's brimming with pained tears, as he rubbed his chin, making a feeble attempt at soothing the pain.

"She's so mean…" He muttered to himself, as he followed the girl reluctantly.

----

_What was this…?_

_It was hot… so blisteringly hot…_

_Flames danced in front of her eyes as she ran past blazing rubble of the once familiar village: Her hometown. She turned a corner, but stopped as a particularly intense fire sprung up in front of her. With a yelp, she leapt back, falling to the ground as she did so. _

_Shuddering in fear, she took a few shaky breaths. _

_No… this couldn't be happening… _

_Where was her mother? And most of all, her brother? Her dear, sweet, strong, amazing brother…? _

_As the small child - feeling insignificant compared to the enormous flames - shook and wept, a particularly horrible smell reached her nostrils. _

_The scent of burning flesh. _

_A dreadful, lurching feeling forming in the pit of her gut, the girl turned hesitantly towards the flame that she had been so scared of seconds ago. _

_A shrill scream ripped trough the air over coming the loud cracking of fire. Tears were streaming down her flushed cheeks, as the child watched the singed forms of black bodies, burning in the center of the flame. She could see the charred, black skin on the undistinguishable body blistering sickeningly. _

_The bubbling sensation she had felt earlier finally took over her, and she lurched over, her empty stomach forcing vomit to spill from her chapped lips. The youth stayed there for a moment, the scent of acid and burning bodies surrounding her form, as she dug her small fingers into the rough dirt. _

_Looking up, the child swallowed heatedly, and wiped away the sweat tickling her face. She pushed herself up slowly, her head spinning, and took an uneasy step forward, only to pause when she felt like falling over again. _

_Whimpering like an injured animal, the girl looked up, only to wish that she hadn't. _

_Numerous bodies were scattered around the rough ground, all of them burning as if they were logs in the fireplace. She shook the thought out of her head, but the fact that her family and friends were as black and crisp as charcoal shook every nerve in her body. She collapsed once again; wailing in anguish at the loss of her loved ones. _

_But she never got to drown in her misery completely, as a pair of cheery yellow sandaled feet came into her line of vision. The small feet adorning the sandals seemed strangely grey, but the child dismissed the thought as a trick of the light. _

_A… survivor…?_

_The girl's eyes trailed up, until it met a face of another young girl, around her own age, although taller in height. The child's heart leapt with joy, all pain and suffering forgotten in that one moment. She knew this girl! Knowing that someone from her village was alive gave her a sense of comfort. Perhaps others had survived as well? _

_A hint of a hopeful smile floated up onto her face, as she latched onto the hem of the other child's dress. She tumbled slightly in her desperation, but regained her balance on her dirt-crusted knees. She ignored the fact that the edges of the other girl's dress was slightly burnt, and looked into the child's golden eyes expectantly._

_Wait… gold? …Something was not right. _

_The small grin slipped off her face, as she stared at the other girl. No… something was _very_ wrong. Now that the child looked closely, she could see that her assumption earlier had not been a hallucination. The girl's skin was grey. Grey as the ash that lay everywhere around the two figures. She could also make out the line of slightly bloody, delicate looking crosses etched across her forehead in a demeaning kind of way. But the worst thing about this, were her eyes. No longer the soft brown that she had learned to know, but a rich gold, and with slit pupils. Those eyes glared down at her with hate and disgust, an intimidating aura oozing around the other girl. _

_She backed away slowly. A voice in the back of her head told her that there _were _no other "survivors", if this girl was a survivor at all. _

_The girl saw a bolt of something that looked oddly like some sort of purple electricity out of the corner of her eye. Her head snapped to the direction of the other girl's hand, to find that several strands of that same, electrical looking light was enveloping it. _

"_You end…" The child's eyes widened with fear at the other girl's soft whisper, her head pounding. "Now."_

_There was a scream, and the lights went out. _

----

Dark brown eyes flew open, as the small figure of none other than Mimi sat up in her makeshift bed. She panted lightly, the horror of the resurfaced memories subsiding gradually. With one last breath, the sandy-haired girl shook her head, clearing her mind of unnecessary thoughts, and then sighed.

_That's the third time this week…_ This thought drifted through her consciousness for a moment, before disappearing in a swirl of other thoughts. The small exorcist promptly lay back down on the thin mat, staring up at the clear, ebony sky. After glaring at each magnificently glowing gems that lay scattered across endless atmosphere, she turned onto her side with a huff. She turned to face the other way minutes later. She turned again.

And again.

And again.

Finally, unable to bear the lack of will to sleep, Mimi bolted upright once more, and ruffled her hair in frustration. "Gah! Why the hell is my own head against me!" She yelled, as her fist repeatedly beat her skull in an almost rhythmic manner. A groan sounded from next to her as the large form of Goz stirred. She huffed, cursing silently at the man's ability to fall into the depths of slumber with such ease.

Turning her head absent-mindedly, Mimi then stared at the ground with something like contempt showing brightly in her eyes. "I hate you too…" She whispered hatefully at the dirt. With that, she lay back down, fully ready to suffer yet another sleepless night.

----

Mist hung heavily in the air, stifling all sounds, and covering all signs of life as the sun's first rays peeped over the majestic mountaintops. Small droplets of water were scattered among the array of tousled strands of grass, caused by the damp air from the previous chilly night.

Everything was still in the peaceful meadow. It could have been a painting.

But in the middle of the unmoving set, a rather ordinary beige colored lump twitched, then finally moved, revealing a man with a tuff of blond hair hanging of the side of his head. He sat up groggily, rubbing his dreary eyes with one of his large, hulky hands, and looked around at his surroundings. When Goz finally remembered where he was, he yawned, and looked to his right, at the form of Mimi sleeping silently.

… Scratch that. Let me try again.

Goz looked to his right, at the form of Mimi staring up at the grey sky with eyes the size of platters, along with the distinct, dark bags under them.

She looked like a wreck, Goz reasoned, as her unblinking stare slowly adjusted so that they were set on him. He felt a distasteful shiver scurry up and down his spine in a hurry, as those dead-looking eyes bore hateful holes into his mind. Unable to bear it any longer, he looked away.

"Err… Miss Exorcist…?" He mumbled, "Did you sleep well?" Of course, Goz had known the answer to that question as soon as he had seen the small fighter's state, but for manner's sake, the question had been asked.

It was replied with a threatening growl. Ah, just as Goz had envisioned.

He started rolling up the mat he had used that night, trying not to glance towards Mimi, knowing too well that her two brown eyes would be glaring daggers at him. After a short silence, only broken by the occasional shuffling of Goz's packing, the small exorcist followed the finder's example, after forcing herself out of bed.

It was several minutes later that the two finally started off on their journey once more, their supplies carried gingerly on their backs. (Although the majority was piled on Goz) They walked in silence, never looking at each other, or even thinking of communicating. All in all, it was quite an awkward walk, for the first 30 minutes, until Goz couldn't hold back the question that had been nagging at the back of his mind since the previous day.

"Miss Exorcist…" He reproached, "Err… why aren't we… taking the train?"

Mimi stopped as if a wall had suddenly sprung up in front of her. Her head turned a fraction in the finder's direction, and the said man could sense something dreadful rushing his way. "Why," the exorcist's voice sent shivers rattling up Goz's spine, "didn't you mention that EARLIER!" With that, she spun around, looking almost maniacal with her irritated expression fully masking what could have been quite an adorable face.

Goz was hiding behind a nearby tree before he knew what he was doing. It must have become an instinctive action after all those days of fleeing from Akuma, along with a certain, black haired samurai. Speaking of Kanda, Mimi's temper was just as bad as his, if not worse.

"Y-y-you never thought of… the train?"

Oh my. How sad.

A glare and a huff. "And what if I didn't?" She grumbled, crossing her arms in resentment. "It's not my fault I'm not used to taking the friggen train…"

"Oh…" Goz chuckled just low enough so that it only reached his ears. But as her low mumbling finally sunk into silence, Goz decided that it was time to actually board the train instead of brooding around, planning on what to do. And so, with Goz at the lead, the pair headed for the nearest train station in the area, with a discontent Mimi, loping around behind him.

----

How he despised that old man.

"—Yuu-chan."

Oh yes. He despised him vey much.

Cringing in annoyance and restraining the urge to yell at the old, frizzy-haired general, a certain, ebony-haired samurai glared at the man. "With all due respect," He growled, "I would appreciate if you would refrain from calling me by my first name." Here he mustered up his most hateful glare at the artist. "Sir."

The large man standing on the other side of the samurai, very slowly started to inch away when he sensed the temperature around him drop by several degrees. Marie sighed. Although Kanda never directly told the general how much his blood boiled whenever he saw the old artist, that was made up with his actions, in which he was quite brutal with. Obviously he wouldn't threaten Tiedoll, but the hateful glares that were shot at him were quite appalling.

But Tiedoll didn't seem to be affected by this in the slightest, as he continued to show undying affection towards the both of them.

So to put it simply, the two were the worst pair to have together in one spot.

And as they stood at the nearly deserted train station, waiting for the retched train to arrive, Marie became anxious to how much longer they would have to stand in the blazing heat with a completely vexed man, who seemed ready to commit an attempted murder against Teidoll. It was just that bad.

But that was when he heard it. The settle sound that only Marie could hear. It was the chugging of heavy wheels on tracks, along with a rusty engine, and the occasional shrill whistle. Though it was not the most attractive sound the man had heard in his lifetime, at the moment it was as heavenly as any top-rated orchestra piece. He imagined, that, if his pearly blue eyes were cable of sight, he would have seen a thick trail of smoke heading their way.

The other two didn't seem to notice a thing until quite a few minutes later, when the express train was rather plainly visible, in all it's shining, inky glory, and thus, the volume of the others went down blissfully.

When the train finally stopped in front of them, and opened it's heavy, steel doors, the three exorcists didn't hesitate to shuffle in. The tree headed to the door where they knew a corridor with compartments would lead, but a man with neatly groomed blond hair stood their way, his hand outstretched, in wait for tickets. But when he saw the silver glint of the rose cross on the exorcists' jackets, he quickly escorted them to another, much grander door. The man opened it for the three fighters, revealing a well-lit corridor, with oak walls, embroidered with golden garnishing.

The compartment they were lead to would have been staggering to any normal civilian, with its plush leather seats, detailed engravings on the polished wooden walls, and miniature chandelier hanging from the ceiling like a crown. But the exorcists sat down without a second glance, as if this was how they were treated all the time. Though that was exactly the case.

The trio sat in a comfortable silence as the shrill whistle sounded outside, muffled slightly by the window between it and the exorcists, signaling its departure. Nobody spoke even as the scenery outside the window started to slowly drift past, then gradually faster, until everything seemed near a blur than anything.

It was a good ten minutes into the ride, when Marie finally heard something fairly interesting. The sound seemed to be coming from a few compartments down, and whoever was speaking didn't seem to be whispering, but discussing with some other individual. He could locate two other heartbeats that belonged to people, excluding himself and the other two exorcists in his compartment, and so he figured that his assumption earlier was indeed correct. The one speaking had a higher pitched voice, so that one must've been female, though he couldn't quite calculate her age. The other character kept silent throughout the entire time, so Marie couldn't decipher _who_ that was.

It was nothing new to Marie to overhear other's talking – He didn't have much of a choice with such sharp hearing, and since he was as blind as a bat, it was nearly his only source of entertainment – so he didn't think much about what the girl was talking about, and his mind slowly started to fog out her words.

"— _Akuma –"_

What?

Marie's eye's snapped open despite the fact that all he saw were blurs of things he could not decipher, **(1) **and collected all his concentration he possessed in order to hear even a tiny bit better. There was no need, however, as the girl's voice came clearly to his ears once more.

"— the Akuma attacked – "

Had she said Akuma? Yes. He was sure she had.

With an abrupt flurry of his coat, Marie stood up – His head nearly touched the ceiling – causing the other two to look up at him with perplexity.

"What is it?" Although this was a question, the way Kanda declared it made it sound more like a command. Marie turned to where Kanda's voice had come from, and with his most serious expression intact, said, "Someone on the train knows about Akuma."

In an instant, every ounce of attention was directed at Marie. The man could feel the two pairs of eye's boring holes through his skull, but he paid little attention to that, as Kanda spoke once more.

"Could it be…?" Marie answered the question that was left unspoken immediately.

"Though it is unlikely, there's a possibility that either an Akuma or Noah may be on this train." He said in his deep, bass voice, listening once again at the suspicious beings.

"— _I want to know if there was Innocence or not!" _

Definitely suspicious.

Kanda raised a curious and somewhat restless brow at Marie's dark expression, ignoring the fact that the indicated man wouldn't be able to see it. Sensing the samurai's impatience, the man nodded in approval, and within seconds filled with footsteps and the flurry of cloaks, the three were gone.

----

**A/N:**

**(1) - Well, I don't really know about Maire's past, but let's just say he was blind since birth. If that's that case, then who's to know if he sees black or colors, since he doesn't know what black or colors are? So I decided he should see blurs. (Nods) **

**You know, I felt like it wasn't the right decision to leave it off right here, but I was taking so long on this chapter, (and it's not even that long) so I just went ahead and uploaded it. Plus I just couldn't get my head strait, so all the words came out kind of weird… Which reminds me that I was not at all pleased with the end of this chapter. It was just kind of… dull? I don't really know. **

**I'm thinking that the station that Tiedoll Unit was at was somewhere in Ukraine or someplace. I don't really know. (Let's just say me geography is really… really sad). Well, anyway, hope you enjoyed, and…**

**Review~!**


	8. And They Meet

**Well, before I start this chapter, I just wanted to give a shout-out to all my reviewers! Thanks, wolfpup026, Maharet11, poisoncandie, TheEvilMuffinToaster, Gigi (Anonymous), Sophadofe, Song of the Cursed Child and Jester of Night! I really appreciate it. **

**And before I forget (Like I've been doing for a while now…)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own -Man. Hoshino Katsura does. And I'm quite glad she does too. It probably wouldn't be as awesome as it is now if I owned it. ^^;**

**And now, onto the story…**

Colorless

---

Chapter Eight: And They Meet

The three men strode silently, though rather hastily, through the elegant corridor, Marie in the lead. They passed one, two, and then three compartments, each one earning a mild glance, but – once evident that each one was empty and not worth their time – they shuffled on.

Marie listened intently as they passed multiple more compartments, none of which proved to be any use to them at all. But finally, as the voices seemed to ring loudly in his ears, He came to a stop in front of the compartment farthest away from the door in which they had come in from. He paused, holding his hand up in a light gesture to halt for those behind him.

They did likewise, and waited for the large man's instructions. Marie, on the other hand, was listening intently to what the compartment's inhabitants were saying.

"I don't want to believe that Akuma attacked that village for no reason—"

… That didn't quite sound like something an Akuma or Noah would say…

"— couldn't find anything out of the ordinary there… I don't think there was innocence… but…"

A sigh.

The way the girl was talking about this supposed attack, (he hadn't known anything about it) almost seemed like…

Noise's eyes widened a fraction.

Perhaps he had made a large misunderstanding.

And so with that, he stepped out and slid open the compartment door without a second's thought. Marie's other two companions were caught slightly off guard, but followed him without further a due.

What they saw before them, with the exception of Marie, (Since he couldn't see, and had already figured out who was inside) was not what they were expecting.

A small girl, perhaps around the age of 10 or 11 years of age, wearing a black outfit, sat before them in the plush, velvet seats of the compartment, staring up with wide, dark, chocolate brown eyes. They didn't recognize her suit at first, (due to the fact that she was wearing the 2nd version) but quickly enough, spotted the silver gleam of the rose cross on her chest.

"…That… doesn't seem quite like an Akuma…" Tiedoll muttered.

Indeed not.

She was an exorcist.

----

Mimi stared up at the three intruders, her eyes widening with surprise. She looked up at the two men and the one woman— no, she realized, the woman was also a man. His hair had caught her off guard for a moment. The other two were very obviously male, especially the very tall, bulky man that stood in front. She saw the rose cross symbol on his unfamiliar uniform, which earned a barley audible gasp from her part.

They were exorcists.

Their eyes, (except the large man) had the same look of shock that Mimi imagine was flittering across her face. The air was tense for several seconds. Nothing was heard besides the very settle sound of their breathing, as vivid thoughts flew through the small girl's head about what to do in a situation like the one she was in at the moment, if she should attack or run.

But wait, she realized. This wasn't a bad thing. On the contrary, it was a rather good thing. More exorcists meant more allies, and people to help her read that darn map! This was good thing indeed, she thought, as a small grin played across her face.

"_Except for the fact that you never get along with others," _Her inner conscience reminded her, wiping Mimi's grin away, into a quiet snarl. _"I hate you too conscience." _She thought back heatedly, biting her lip.

"Kanda-san?" Mimi was snapped out of her inner debate as she glanced at the finder— what was his name again? – who had finally shattered the heavy atmosphere. He was staring at the man who Mimi had mistaken for a female just seconds ago.

Kanda glanced, no _glared,_ at the finder as if daring for him to continue. The finder – Ah right! His name was Goz – didn't seem to acknowledge Kanda's glare as anything out of the ordinary, and continued with what seemed to be enthusiasm.

"Remember me Kanda-san?" He exclaimed joyously, "With the mission about the witch?" Goz seemed to admire Kanda deeply. Judging by this Kanda character's mannerism, however, it seemed that Goz wasn't going to be getting any acknowledgement in return.

But to her surprise, a look of recognition flittered across his face for a split second, before returning to his stoic look, unnoticed except for Mimi's watchful gaze. "Che," He muttered, (Though it very well seemed to Mimi that Kanda was trying to hide the fact that he remembered Goz)"I don't have time to remember irritating finders like you." He glared at Goz once again. It seemed as if he wanted to bore holes through the blonde's somewhat big head.

Mimi snickered at Goz's crestfallen expression, but was snapped back into reality when she heard another being speak. She looked up to see the older man in the back, patting Kanda on the shoulder.

"Now, now Yuu-kun!" He said, almost in a comically scolding manner, "Don't be so cold against everyone in the world! He didn't do anything to you~!" This earned a growl from the raven-haired man, (Almost in a way that said, "And how do YOU know that?!"*) but was unable to do or say anything as the frizzy-haired exorcist spoke once again. "But I think we all want to know who this lovely little girl is, no?"

Did he just call her… _lovely little girl?_

No one called her _little girl _and got away with it.

A very small section in the back of Mimi's mind _knew_ that the old man had not meant any harm, but the rest of her conscience only concentrated on the harm it actually did on her ego, as a vein pulsed visibly on her temple.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Goz frantically motioning to the exorcists by sliding his hand across his neck, in a way that would tell someone, "That's not a good idea unless you want to be sent to the pits of Hell!" Obviously, the other three didn't seem to get the gist of his warning, as they stared at him in perplexity.

Oh, how these oblivious suckers were so going to _die_!

"Did you just…" the temperature dropped in the compartment as all other expressions but anger was wiped form Mimi's face, "call me… _little girl?"_ An obvious look of confusion flittered across the three other exorcist's faces. What on earth could she be so mad about?

Their desired answer was soon obtained when Mimi opened her mouth next.

"WHY," She bellowed, "does _everyone_ think I'm a _little kid_!? I am a friggen' _teenager, 17 hacking_ _years_ _old_ for crying out loud!" Screaming was the only word to describe her outburst at this point, but just when it looked like she was done with her little rampage, she continued: "I do _not_ look like a **kid**! _Irefusetobelieveit_! Sure, I may be a _bit_ short! So **what**?! _Iamnearlyanadult_! _Totally_ and _completely_!" She looked like a mad child— err mad_woman_ – as she hungrily huffed in air after her flare-up, her eyes as wide and mad as a rabid squirrel's.

Silence.

It was the old man who sliced through the tense and awkward air. He stepped forth; a completely genuine smile splattered across his slightly wrinkled face, and set a hand on top of Mimi's head. It was an easy task too, since the sandy-haired exorcist girl only reached up to the middle of his ribcage.

And with his smile still stretching in a friendly manner, he said, (bravely, in Goz's point of view), "Now, now, little girl, you mustn't get so mad." His smiled widened, as his eyes twinkled with kindness. "We're _very _sorry for calling you that, little girl, so please forgive us." With that he patted her head a couple of times, leaving Mimi with a blank, and immensely irritated look.

"Did you not hear what I just said!?" She growled up at the man, but by the time she realized what was going on, all three of the intruder exorcists were making themselves comfortable in the empty seats. "H-hey! What are you doing!?" Mimi exclaimed, "This is _my _compartment! (Goz sulked in a random corner when he was excluded from this statement.) You can't just barge in here and _sit down_! What are you thinking?"

"This is not your compartment, you damned pipsqueak." The exorcist girl swirled to face the raven-haired man, who was sitting by the window, his arms crossed, and eyes closed. She would have thought that he was sleeping if it wasn't for his eyebrows, which were furrowed in an expression of vexation.

Mimi seethed in response, her anger meter rising up considerably at his arrogant attitude, and the use of the word, "pipsqueak". "Fuck you, transvestite." The words were out of her mouth before she could doubt about how intelligent that option was.

Bad move.

The samurai was up in an instant, a shining black blade pointing at her face. There was an evident expression of cool fury on his features.

Mimi stood very still. That thing was extremely close to her nose, and by the looks of it, extremely sharp as well. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the older man had gotten up with a sigh, probably to stop the sword-wielding man.

But he didn't have to, for the next moment, a large black hand, which was glowing harshly like tremendously hot metal, grabbed the sword. The temperature in the compartment immediately rose by much too much, causing all, excluding Mimi, to break out sweating within a split second. They felt like they were going to burn to death!

"Don't you dare point a sword at me…" the girl growled, her grip tightening on the onyx blade. To her surprise, though, the sword wouldn't crush or bend. Though Mimi wasn't emitting as much heat or strength as she would've in an Akuma battle, usually swords would soften and crush under the utter heat of her innocence. So that probably meant…

… That this sword was Kanda's innocence. Innocence did toughen up normal weapons after all.

Kanda didn't seem to waver under her glare or the heat radiating from the large hand. Instead, he just "Tch"ed, and glared at Mimi with resentment. She glared right on back, trying her hardest not to cringe at his cold, smothering stare. This was the first time, she realized, when she had a hard time beating someone in a glaring contest. And, finally, to her dismay, she blinked. As if taking this as his cue, Kanda sat down, smirking in his victory.

A vein twitched on the sandy-haired girl's temple, but she let it slide. They would continue their battle in a more suitable place, where they could actually _move around. _And with that, the girl deactivated her innocence, and sat down, leaving everyone (Excluding Kanda) to rush over, in an attempt to open the window.

Mimi glared at the ebony-haired exorcist, who was sitting opposite her, staring out the window absentmindedly. She growled.

She didn't like him.

No, not at all.

----

"Aaaauuuggghh…."

"Shut it fool. You're making _me _want to sound like a zombie…"

"Shut the hell up bitch. _Nobody_ wants to hear your _whining—_"

"Says the one whose barley dragging their ass half a mile per hour, and moaning like there's no bloody tomorrow."

Devitt grumbled some incomprehensible mutterings under his breath bitterly. The three were trudging along a worn dirt path heading East. To where, exactly, they weren't sure. An old man, not too long ago, who was riding down the road in the opposite direction they were heading, had told them that he had seen a man with a fiery red mane wearing all black heading that way, not two hours ago. So using this small bit of information as their lead, the three weary, and quite obviously pissed, teens started on their search once more.

The endless scenery of fields and the same, uninteresting bushes passed by them, making it almost seem as if they were in an classic cartoon where the scenery outside was just one image playing over and over in a repetitive roll. It was aggravating, Chike decided, to see the same thing for several minutes on end. She longed for something different to lay her eyes on, so that she might be saved by the limitless boredom.

The only problem was that she couldn't find anything different about, well, anything really. There were her two idiot brothers slinking ahead of her, grumbling like a bear on its period, and then the _stupid_ fields sweeping past their slouched forms. If only another sparrow would release its waste onto Devitt's head once more… The brunet cracked a mischievous grin at the thought. Oh how humorous that had been.

It had been 30 minutes or so, perhaps more, since they had pried themselves away from the burning wreckage that had once been a repulsive – or so it had seemed to the three Noahs, anyway – village with a strip bar. A nasty strip bar too, with more ugly, burley men than prostitutes. (Not that that was any better, but having more of the gorillas in a strip bar somewhat defeated the purpose of a, hmm, let's see, "strip bar".)

Chike took a quick glance behind her, and grumbled slightly when the dark shade of the heavy smoke, wafting from the village ruin, was still visible from her standpoint. The smoke reminded the Noah of the village, and recollecting about her and the twin's none too pleasant experience there didn't seem like a good idea to her. So, with that, she jogged slightly to catch up with the other two, and then, shoved them from behind as hard as she could.

Hell (or something very similar in definition) broke loose after the brothers tripped over each other at the rough impact of their sister. The golden-eyed Noah girl ran as if her life depended on it, while laughing quite like the madwoman she was, Jasdevi hot at her heels.

_When one was bored, annoy another, _Chike though gleefully. _Works every time._

But with that thought still levitating around in her head, something small and purple zoomed past her head.

Or, rather, right into her face.

For such a small object, the mysterious purple thing had more than enough power packed into it, for the moment it hit Chike in the mug, she flew back at least a couple of feet, and landed with a loud thud, causing Jasdevi to stumble forward at the brunet's abrupt change of direction.

Growling, they turned, until seeing Chike's rather silly state, where their previous frowns were replaced with wide grins, accompanied by gales of uncontrollable laughter.

"That—that was hilarious! You look like a complete _idiot_ right now!" Devitt hollered, pointing an affronting finger at his companion's form, still lying on the ground. Jasdero replied with his trademark laugh, as he agreed with his brother in delight.

It was now Chike's turn to growl, as she sat up, the purple thing still sticking to her nose. Snatching the offending object off her face in a flustered rush, the girl recognized it as one of Tyki's cannibal golems: Tease. Raising a curious brow – which was evidently also partially irate, as for the next moment, with a small flash of purple/black, the Tease clutched in her fist shredded into nothingness – Chike stood up, and looked around, searching for the source of the Tease. The only person she knew who used them were Tyki, and he was supposed to be assassinating the people he was assigned with. So then why on earth would a Tease be here?

"… Tyki?" Chike called out uncertainly, causing the two boys beside her to stop, and stare at her perplexedly.

There was no reply, however, and, standing up, Chike just shrugged off the matter. Maybe Tyki had just let his Tease feed on some random human that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time? That was likely, but she wasn't sure whether or not if Tyki would be so careless about the location he left his Tease to feed at.

Sighing in frustration, Chike decided to ignore the incident all together. It wasn't any of her business what Tyki did with his stupid butterflies, and it wasn't as if the brunet Noah was exceptionally friendly with the Portuguese man anyway.

Chike turned, ready to take her leave, but then, she realized that he companions were not with her. She couldn't just leave them, she was just helping out on _their _mission after all. But how and _why _did they always disappear, when Chike had her eyes on them for all but 10 seconds?

_It's like I'm their baby sitter… _The Noah thought, as she set out to look for her two brothers.

But she hadn't needed to give the effort, for the obnoxious – not to mention, familiar – laughter that cracked through the air like a whip was extremely distinct, and the Noah immediately turned to a nearby bush – or was it a tree? – where she swore the sound had come from. And, indeed, when she pushed her way through it, she found her two brothers cackling at a lump, completely covered with Tease.

"Holy…" Was the only word she could utter when the said Tease fluttered up in a frenzied hurry, revealing a bloodied corpse. The body seemed to have been fed upon, as large amounts of it's oozing flesh was missing, blood and pus welling out of the immense hole in it's chest. Blisters dotted its arms (or what was left of them), and the eyeballs seemed to have been popped in its sockets, leaving two miserable, inky pits in its agonized face. Blood matted the victim's hair, which may have used to be blond, but was now a disgusting, dried brown. Chike couldn't tell the gender the human had been, let alone the age. It was quite a gruesome sight.

"…Wow. _Someone's_ been having fun not doing their job." The brunet Noah muttered under her breath, nudging the blistering forearm of the carcass, only to have pustules burst sickeningly. Chike grimaced as she tried to wipe her now, pus-covered shoe on the grass, but failing quite miserably.

Devitt, who had finally subsided in his laughter, considered the corpse. "Why the hell is the Tease here anyway? Isn't that Tyki-bastard supposed to be killing some exorcist or some shit like that?" He said, getting a grunt in reply.

"He _is _supposed to be killing some exorcist, which is why this is kind of weird." Chike muttered, finally salvaging her shoe from some of the puss by rubbing it against a tree. She ignored the rest of the goo oh her boot while adding, "But I guess it doesn't matter much. Tyki could have just been bored."

"Why does _Tyki_ get to kill humans hii~?" Jasdero whined, walking up to Devitt. He lowered himself into a crouching position by the corpse, and started poking its empty eye sockets with a twig. "Dero wanna kill some humans too, hii~!"

"Except, you just killed and entire _village_ of humans."

The three teenagers whirled around at the sound of the new voice, only to find their short, spiky haired sister skipping out of one of her portals. A mischievous grin spread across Road's face as her eyes landed on the corpse. "Ooh, that's pretty gross~." The child giggled gleefully, poking it with what appeared to be Lero.

"Road-Tama! Don't poke that _thing_ with me lero~!" It shrilled, trying to shrink away from the blisters. "You'll get me all dirty!"

"So?" Road deadpanned. "It doesn't concern me~."

"Road-Tama!"

Devitt was the one to interrupt the argument between Noah and Umbrella. "Road, why the hell are you here?" He demanded. "Cross is our prey, you can't take him!" He glared at her suspiciously. After all, it was going to be _Jasdevi_ who was going to finish off Cross, they weren't even going to let Chike touch him. She was just there to help the two Noah to find the red-haired bastard.

"Oh don't worry about that." Road stated simply. "I'm not interested in boring people like Cross. I'm just here because the Earl wanted you guys back for a little bit. He needs to tell you something." Here she grinned pointedly at the twins. "And he's not too pleased about how you slaughtered that village." Jasdevi froze up at her words, and uneasily glanced at each other. The Earl and 'not pleased', was definitely a bad mix.

"So come on~!" Road continued, flouncing back to the red-and-black checkered door that stood ominously behind her. "The Earl doesn't like to wait~!" The lithe form of the child-like Noah disappeared into the darkness beyond the door, her last taunt lingering in the air. The three teenagers glanced at each other uneasily, and then followed their sister, the shadows enveloping their bodies as they stepped over the doorsill.

When light once again reached their eyes, the Noah were standing in the all-too-familiar, darkened room that they knew as their living room. The Earl sat in one of his many rocking chairs that he owned, littered across the mansion, knitting something that seemed to be a stocking. What it was for, no one really knew, but that had never stopped him, now did it?

"Sennenkou~!" Road squealed, pouncing on the rather round man, and swinging herself around his neck gleefully. "I brought Chike and the twins over!"

"Why thank you Road, dear." The Earl chuckled, patting the smaller Noah on the head. Here, he glanced up to look in the direction of the other three Noah. Even through his glinting spectacles, they could tell he was starting pointedly at Jasdevi, his ever-present – not to mention eerie – grin stretching across his face

"And Jasdevi, would you explain to me _exactly _why you set that village ablaze~?" The Earl's question was met with some incomprehensible mutterings from the twins, as they tried to look for an excuse.

"Well, ya see—"

"They were being real assho—"

"So we got kinda mad—"

"They shouldn't 'ave made us do that anywa—"

"And we kinda accidentally—"

"Killed 'em all."

The last three words were said in union as the two twins set their gaze anywhere but the Earl.

"I… see." The rounded man mused, rocking slowly, back and forth. "Well, you were lucky that just a minor exorcist that seemed to have been passing by was the one to come to the scene. If that little incident were to disarray my act for them…" The small, round spectacles, that sat perched on the Earl's nose, flashed ominously, as a somewhat dark atmosphere fell over the room. Although the Earl's sentence was never finished, he got the message across just fine.

But the tense air dissipated almost instantly, as the Earl started to knit cheerfully once again. "And other than that, I wanted to tell you I am under the impression that Cross is heading to Japan~!" The teenagers looked at the Earl, curious at the sudden new information. "So you two can head off to find him after we have some dinner~."

With those final words hanging in the tense-free air, the Earl seemed to completely ignore the three teenage Noah, and started to hum a happy tune. Devitt, Jasdero and Chike decided that it was a fine moment to take their leave.

The three silently stalked over to the elegant doors, and quickly shuffled out, releasing a breath they didn't know they were holding in.

"Well…" Chike muttered, "That sucked." The twins replied with a grunt, and a snappish laugh, obviously quite irritated.

The three trudged along in silence for a few minutes, heading in the general direction of their rooms. Just as their bedroom doors came into sight, a low rumble broke throughout the mostly vacant corridor, making the air itself seem to ripple.

"Damn…" Devitt grumbled, as he and his brother rubbed their stomachs. "I'm hungry."

Chike agreed by patting her belly as well, almost longingly. They stood in a quiet trance for a few seconds, thinking about food, before they turned to glance at each other in one swift motion.

"Sennenkous said dinner's gonna be ready soon…"

"But Dero's really, _really_ hungry hii~!"

"And just a snack wouldn't hurt…"

Another moment to silence fell over the three. Oh, what to do in such a _complicated_ situation?

"Let's eat." All three declared these two words in unison, as they swiveled around, and stalked away in the opposite direction of their rooms. Their next stop: the kitchen.

----

Why were seats by a window so comfortable? Mimi pondered on this question for a moment, her lithe form heavily leaning against the windowpane. It was probably because of just that, being able to lean on something. That added with the soothing (in her opinion) rumble of the train made her feel extremely sleepy, and thus, the comfort.

But letting her self sleep in front of the other exorcists was out of the question. What if they tried to attack her in her sleep? She was quite sure that the tall man with the headphones and the older man with frizzy hair wouldn't do anything to her, but Kanda was another story altogether. He gave her an unsettling feeling, like he wouldn't hesitate to kill her.

The short girl drowsily glared at the ebony haired man sitting across from her. Why did she even end up sitting across from him anyway? Grunting in irritation, Mimi forced herself to sit up once more, though her shoulders slumped forward considerably.

Silence settled over the compartment once more, save for the soft scratching of lead on paper that was coming from the older man sitting beside Mimi. She glanced at it swiftly, curious to see what he was writing. But to her surprise, she found a beautiful sketch of a man instead. The girl gaped at the quality of the illustration, as she took in the details of the man. He seemed to have bandages wrapped around his forehead, sides of his face and around his neck so that you could only see his face and a bit of the man's dark hair. He was wearing a strange hooded garment, where the tip of the hood extended about a foot and held a circular ornament at the end.

Mimi had been so mesmerized by the drawing that she hadn't noticed that the pencil had come to a stop a while ago. But when she eventually did, she looked up, only to find the frizzy-haired man smiling down at her. Her face flushed a bit when she realized that she had been caught staring, and quickly looked away, seething at her own ignorance.

"Do you like to draw?" These gentle words caused Mimi to look back at the older man in slight surprise. After a brief silence, the girl finally thought about the question.

"Uhh… Not particularly…" she muttered awkwardly, realizing that most of the room's occupant's eyes were on her. (Save for Marie, whom had his head cocked towards her instead.)

"… I see." He said. Mimi could hear the slight disappointment in his voice, but it vanished as he spoke once again. "But do you find it entertaining?"

"Well… I guess." The girl muttered, looking away again. Why was he asking her this?

There was some rustling, in which Mimi glanced back at the man. He seemed to be about to tear out a page in his sketchbook. "Would you like to draw a bit to pass the time?" He asked. Mimi blinked, shock passing over her features.

"Oh… Ah, no! No, it's fine!" She exclaimed. "I'm really, _really_ bad at drawing!"

"It doesn't matter," The General replied, "as long as you just do it for you own enjoyment." With that, he ripped a page out of his sketchbook, and handed it to her along with a pencil.

She stared at the items for a few moments, before hesitantly taking them in her hands. The rest of the compartment went back to their own thoughts and actions, as Mimi's eyes settled blankly on the starch piece of paper in her hand. What the heck was she supposed to do with this? The girl really didn't feel like humiliating herself by drawing a horrible abomination, especially not after seeing the general's incredible piece of art.

Glancing back at the frizzy-haired man, Mimi quietly set the paper and pencil on the seat beside her, and frowned, before crossing her arms in irritation, and angrily inspected the general's work once again. Really now, after seeing Tiedoll's artwork, anything she did would pale in comparison. By a million light years.

She glared at his artwork, and wondered if the man was a character Tiedoll had created. But the man portrayed in the picture, who wore an impish grin, just seemed so real. He seemed as if she could walk up to him and start an actual conversation. Mimi wanted to know who it was, and with that thought in mind, she glanced up at the general. She was slightly startled when she found an almost heartbreaking expression adorning the older exorcist's features, as he sniffled slightly.

It seemed almost cruel to interrupt the man in his emotional moment, but Mimi didn't think that he would fall apart just because of a simple question. So, without a further ado, she cleared her throat.

"Err… who's that guy?" She muttered, catching the other's attention successfully. The near-teary-eyed man glanced down at his paper, then back at Mimi slowly.

"This is Daisya…" He sobbed slightly, causing the other two male exorcists to tense. "He… was one of my students… What a good kid he was."

"… What happened to him?" Mimi asked hesitantly, if not cautiously.

There was a pause before Tiedoll replied. "He… he died."

"…Oh." The girl mentally slapped herself in the face for saying something so insensitive, and quickly added, "Sorry to hear that…"

An unbearably tense and awkward silence rooted itself in the compartment, as a wave of emotion over fell the five. Mimi felt a stab of guilt, something she didn't feel very often, when she realized she had brought up such a touchy topic. The girl grabbed the paper and pencil that was still sitting beside her, and pressed herself into a corner of the small room, pulling her knees up in front of her, almost as if trying to hide.

Laying out the paper against her lap, she thought of something to draw. It was the only thing she could think of doing at the moment, and she no longer cared if it turned out horribly. She risked a peek towards Tiedoll's paper once again, transfixed on each of it's meaningful strokes.

Finally, the girl turned back to her blank, parch paper. She smoothed it out again, before starting to draw. It was a bit cramped, but she could manage. One stroke after one wobbly stoke she drew, concentrating as best as she could.

By the time she was done, the sky outside was dimming into a cold grey. There was no warm sunset to ease her mixed feelings in the moment, as she glared down at her picture. It was extremely crude, with rough lines jutting out everywhere. It resembled what a first or second grader would draw. The picture was of what seemed to be a boy – or was it a man?– with messy, short hair. The rest of the picture was hard to make out, it being so poorly drawn, but Mimi stared at it with longing.

She sighed, before folding the paper up several times and tucking it into her jacket pocket that was sewed conveniently on the inside of her uniform. The girl glanced outside, the landscape slowly growing darker and darker as night fell upon them. She wondered briefly when they were going to reach their destination, as the first star that night shimmered brightly above them.

**A/N:**

*** Well, for those of you who haven't watched the anime, there were two filler episodes about Kanda, and he meets this finder called Goz. (Or for those who have read the Reverse Novel 1, chapter 2, the same thing basically happens in the Novel as well…) Together they wind up in this village where a witch is rumored to be and yada-yada. And well, basically, when the akuma attacks Kanda and Goz, Kanda shields Goz from being hit by an Akuma bullet by jumping in front of him. (Or in the case of the Novel, he was hit by an ax.) Kanda was fine, because of his healing abilities, but he was still hurt.**

**And if you're reading this, thank you, and sorry! I know it's been over half a year since I last updated, but I was really stuck for a while. So thank you to those who stayed with me even up till now! **

… **And as an apology, you can shoot me for free, and I won't do anything back. Deal?**

**D-n-h**


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